


Done with the Compass, Done with the Chart

by chainofclovers



Series: Intervals in Green [3]
Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Character, F/F, Happy Ending, Lesbian Character, The Pursuit of Happiness, coming out later in life, feelings for days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 05:08:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12381540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: Grace and Frankie keep missing each other, in every sense of the phrase. Can they decide on a definition of home?This is the sequel to"Let Your Arms Become Propellers."It's set several months after the end of Season 3. Title is from the pretty gay Emily Dickinson poem"Wild nights—Wild nights!"





	1. Chapter 1 (Grace)

**Author's Note:**

> Am I insane, or just optimistic? Is there a difference? Anyway, I've decided to serialize the sequel to "Let Your Arms Become Propellers." Despite what the title of this one might lead you to believe, it's all mapped out, and a good deal of it's finished, and I'm excited to share the first chapter with you.
> 
> Many thanks to Chilly_Flame and Needled_Ink_1975 for reading in advance and offering helpful feedback. 
> 
> Before we begin, a quick content warning: some chapters include discussion of eating disorders and alcohol dependency. Neither are a main plot point of the series, and neither feature prominently in this first chapter, and everybody's gonna make it through this series just fine, but I wanted to let you know so you can make good decisions about reading this piece.

“Maybe this is what Lorca meant  
        when he said, _verde que te quiero verde_ —

because when the shade of night comes,  
I am a field of it, any worry ready to flower in my chest. 

My mind in the dark is una bestia, unfocused,  
        hot. And if not yoked to exhaustion 

beneath the hip and plow of my lover,  
then I am another night wandering the desire field—

bewildered in its low green glow…”

            — from “From the Desire Field” by Natalie Diaz

 

Grace wants her phone call with Frankie to end the night, so she heads up to her bedroom with plenty of time to spare. She changes into pajamas, pulls down the comforter and top sheet, piles all the pillows onto one side of the bed, sits back against them, and waits for the ring. But all the preparation in the world doesn’t make her startle any less when the ringtone breaks the silence. 

She forces herself to wait a few seconds before picking up. “Hey, girl!” she says, like she just happened to be around, like they haven’t had this conversation scheduled for three days. Grace would like to talk to Frankie daily, but she’d also like to maintain her dignity, so she’s spent two endless months muddling through with lots of texting and the occasional call. They’ve FaceTimed about Vybrant, too—just quick midday conferences here and there—but haven’t used that particular technology for anything more leisurely.

“Grace!” Frankie says, and even without FaceTime, Grace can picture the way Frankie’s eyes crinkle with joy as she says her name. When they lived together, she never quite got used to the experience of walking into a room Frankie was already in. It felt simultaneously like being seen in some new, ultra-flattering light and like being recognized as the most familiar, predictable friend.

They talk for a long time, and after the general catching up, talk centers around plans for the small plot of land on Jacob’s property. It turns out that even in retirement, he can’t stop growing things. “Such a talented farmer,” Grace says in lieu of more detailed commentary. She wonders if Frankie can hear how she just doesn’t have it in her to ask questions about that particular subject. But she understands where Jacob’s coming from: she failed retirement, too.

Grace already knows more about the genus _Dioscorea_ than she ever dreamed she would, but somehow there’s still more to learn. As Frankie chatters, Grace thinks _Talk sweet potatoes to me_ , which is a dumb joke on multiple levels—and an offensive one, if you’re addressing the girlfriend of a yam farmer. “That’s great, Frankie,” she says when there’s finally a pause. “The _esculenta_ sure doesn’t seem like the lesser yam to me.”

“You sound sleepy,” Frankie says, and Grace is ready to protest, but Frankie continues: “Are you in bed?”

She could lie. _I’m out back._ But there’s no ocean whispering to Frankie in the background of the call. _I’m in the kitchen, pouring vodka straight into my mouth because there’s no one here to stop me._ But she wanted to be sharp for this conversation—sober, even—so she had one glass of wine with the salad she ate for dinner and made herself stop after that. _I’m on the couch._ “Yeah, I’m in bed.”

“I’m exceedingly fond of that bed. Which pajamas?”

“The purple silk ones.” 

“Don’t tease.”

“I’m not!” Grace hates the squawky indignation that makes it into her voice. “I’m being honest.” 

“Well, they’re my favorites,” Frankie says. “Oh, Grace. Are you taking care of yourself?”

“I should be asking you that, though I know you don’t appreciate critiques of your diet.” Every instinct Grace has trained into her body says _change the subject, change the subject. Don’t ruin this._

“Well, I’m asking you. You know what I mean. Quality control for Vybrant and all that.”

 _Oh._ “Um—”

“Tell me you are.”

“I am.” Just saying it sends a flush up Grace’s chest and neck and into her cheeks. It’s true, too.

“Good.” When Grace doesn’t say anything, Frankie adds, “Just wanted to check.”

“Um—” Grace still doesn’t know what to say, wishes Frankie would keep giving her something to listen to. She’s holding the phone with her left hand, the hand with the stronger wrist. It’s easy to run the fingers of her right hand down her neck, to graze the collar of her pajamas, to streak a bit lower until she’s touching one of her breasts through her shirt. She’s never done this while they’re still on the phone, but she can’t wait. Even the light pressure slams her with two entwined sensations: a sharp pulse of arousal between her legs, the pain of missing Frankie knotting her stomach. She feels a little guilty that Frankie doesn’t know she’s touching herself, but the guilt would be worse if Frankie did know, if she put Frankie back in the position of being asked to even _think_ about cheating on Jacob. Frankie would shut that down in a heartbeat. She’d tried to articulate herself before Frankie left, and it hadn’t worked. 

“Grace,” Frankie says softly. “What are you doing?”

She pulls her hand away, swallows hard. “Nothing. I’m doing nothing. I’m sitting on my bed wearing your favorite pajamas.”

“I wish you were doing something more interesting than that.”

“No,” says Grace. “I’m staying out of your way.” 

“Doesn’t change what I wish.”

Grace makes room for a silence. She goes beneath the hem of her top this time, past her belly, lingers against her ribs. She holds the phone between her shoulder and ear for a moment so she can undo a couple of buttons, make it easier to move. “Wait, where _are_ you?” She’s been picturing Frankie wandering the house, making funny faces at Jacob every time they cross paths, impressing him secondhand with her encyclopedic knowledge of tubers.

“There’s a tire swing in the backyard.” 

“I miss you.” Grace touches her fingertips to the spot just below her nipple, right where she likes to be stroked—right where any number of people in any number of past years might have spent more time touching her if she’d ever told anyone other than herself what she wanted.

“And I miss you.” Frankie sighs. “What are you doing?”

“I’m, um, don’t make me tell you—” 

“I wish I was there.”

“Me too.” For a few seconds, there’s nothing but their breathing. Surely Frankie knows exactly what she’s up to, but she turns her breaths into little pants so there’s no ambiguity. She looks down at herself, at her fingers moving beneath her pajamas, her nipple pressing against the silk. She imagines Frankie watching her from the side of the bed, a hand on Grace’s leg. Maybe Frankie would lean forward, hold Grace’s fingers still so she could press her tongue against the fabric. “You could watch,” Grace says. “Or help.” The words are hardly X-rated, but by Grace Hanson standards, she’s basically in a porno right now.

“Oh god.” Frankie takes a shuddery breath. “Grace, I think I should go.”

“I’m sorry.” Unfortunately, now that she’s started panting, it’s hard to stop. There’s no artifice in it; it’s turned into the truth. “I don’t know what came over me, I’m so sorry—” 

“No, I’m the sorry one.” 

Frankie ends the call, and Grace throws her phone against the comforter. It gives an unsatisfying bounce, lands barely three inches from where she tossed it. She feels humiliated, but even as she stews in it, she knows that’s not quite right. When she digs beneath it, it turns out there’s only a little embarrassment in among the giant pile of sadness.

How is it, Grace wonders as she sits marooned in the aftermath of the conversation, hands folded in her lap, that every time she’s loved someone it’s come at the expense of someone else. That there are conditions to everything, despite her best intentions. 

Uninvited, Babe’s mantra sneaks in, just like it does every other damn day of her life: _Inhale peace; exhale joy._ The idea is so beautiful it made her cry when she heard it the first time, back when Babe was still alive and letting those words guide her into what Grace can now admit was a righteous death. How could a person with that magic, a person at once wild and serene, leave the world so quickly? 

Grace has no magic. She can’t inhale or exhale Babe’s ingredients because she’s nothing but a collection of wants, and it’s so, so humiliating—actually humiliating, this time—to have everything she has but to want so much nonetheless. There’s the comfortable beast tap-tap-tapping at her insides, asking for alcohol. And then there’s the newer, warmer monster who wants to fuck and be fucked, who wants to be held and loved. She could throw a martini at one longing and a vibrator at the other, but she turns out the light instead. Ends the night with Frankie’s voice, just like she’d planned.


	2. Chapter 2 (Frankie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Frankie sets her phone on the ground as gently as she can. She resettles on the tire swing, checks her grip on the chain in each hand, kicks off for what she knows from experience will be a slow, creaky flight. She loses a clog in the process, chucks the other one for good measure, and tilts her head to the sky._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Chilly_Flame and Needled_Ink_1975 for reading in advance and offering feedback.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's been reading, and to everyone who let me know what they thought of the first chapter. Your feedback means so much to me.

Frankie sets her phone on the ground as gently as she can. She resettles on the tire swing, checks her grip on the chain in each hand, kicks off for what she knows from experience will be a slow, creaky flight. She loses a clog in the process, chucks the other one for good measure, and tilts her head to the sky. 

She and Jacob live a few miles from city limits, and the sky out here shocks her every night. It’s expansive and sumptuous and star-drenched, and there’s no ocean to confuse matters. There’s earth, and then there is sky. There’s being a human, all that close-to-the-ground skin and dirt and smallness that even mountains accumulate, and then there’s a highly superior celestial blanket covering everything.

Frankie Bergstein abhors all forms of pollution, but she misses the smudged sky back home, the collage of clouds and city light, the moon landing haphazardly against the mirrored ocean. The stars felt more special when she could only see them some of the time. It might be the most ridiculous thing in the world to feel embarrassed by an abundance of beauty, but, maybe for the first time ever, she is.

What a waste of stars. But there’s no time to diagnose the origins of _that_ emotional quagmire; she needs to meditate on what’s just happened, must prepare herself for the long dark walk across the yard and back to Jacob’s adobe, where yellow squares of light tell her that he’s either in the kitchen or his study. In the evenings, he likes to watch TV there, or read a book with NPR jazz to keep him company. And Frankie. He likes it when she keeps him company, too. 

Frankie closes her eyes, attempts another orbit on the swing. All of Grace’s pajamas are her favorites, but if she had to choose only one set of pajamas to look at for the rest of her life, she’d pick those, the ones they refer to as “purple” but are really a color more like splashes of beet juice, or a concentration of berries. On the night of the burglary, she’d gone to sleep mere inches away from that glorious color, and even with the lights out she was convinced she could see it in the dark. At first, Grace had shifted around, uncomfortable because Frankie was there, and then she’d abruptly stopped moving even though there was no way she could be asleep already. It was all Frankie could do not to reach out and touch the silk, preferably right at the place where Grace’s waist dipped inward, to pull her closer. 

Frankie fast-forwards months into the future, imagines Grace upstairs at the beach house tonight, holding herself in the dark. They practically have a professional obligation to masturbate, and even if that weren’t the case that part wouldn’t make her sad, but she keeps thinking of Grace as stranded somewhere out of reach. Like her bed, or the entire house, is a raft, and she’s been abandoned, thrust alone into a voyage she never asked for. That’s Frankie’s fault, and it’s tragic. 

Here, at least, Frankie can decide how she’d fix it. She opens her eyes for another peek at the stars. Closes them again and zooms back to Grace. She turns on a lamp, opens a window to cool Grace’s skin, remembers that Grace should be wearing glasses since her contacts are already out and adds them to her face. She includes herself in the scene, rewinds it so Grace is just getting started. She moves closer, until she’s perched at the edge of the bed, finds a delicate knee under the covers. Even better: she pulls the covers away from Grace’s body, brightens the lamplight far past a safe wattage. Somehow, she makes Grace realize she wants to see every little detail. Wants to touch every little detail. And then she makes Grace happy. 

Frankie shifts forward, plants her feet on the ground until the tire swing stills. She doesn’t care about the dirt and dust on her socks. She doesn’t care about her phone, or about how far apart from each other her clogs might be. She cares about a bedroom almost 900 miles away. 

She’s been a cheater twice before, first when she and Sol slept together their last time in the old house, and then when she and Grace kissed during the Ménage à Moi design process, and she knows how bad it is to confess and how bad it is to let the secret fester. It’s better, maybe only marginally, to rip off the bandaid with as much compassion possible. But how? She’d be a lot more successful at coming up with a plan if she could stop imagining having sex with Grace long enough to think about anything else. 

That’s easier said than done now that she’s got the soundtrack of Grace’s arousal on permanent loop in her head. It’s just one more thing to add to the key information Frankie’s collected about her over the years. Deep down, Frankie has known for a long time that Grace would be happier with a woman. Even when Grace has genuinely cared for a man, their connection has been discordant—tortured, even—and ultimately disappointing. It’s still hard for her to talk about Phil. And when she admitted to Frankie that she’d finally made good on her agreement to spend two hours with Nick “Skullcap” Skolka, she tried to laugh off her revulsion, the way she’d ducked away from his goodnight kiss, but panic undercut every sentence. “I’m fluent in Nick,” she’d said. “But I can’t keep forgiving myself for it.”

Then there’s the matter of Grace’s great passion, her work. Her first career? Feminine beauty. Her second career? Women’s pleasure. Not to mention the totally unhealthy, totally consuming obsession she has with her own body, like she’s in perpetual preparation for something awful or something great and has to torment herself until it comes. Like she’s never settled down or given in. 

Frankie knows her problem isn’t a lack of answers. She was a coward about Grace long before tonight, only brave enough to flirt with her when she knew Grace would turn her down, only brave enough to kiss her that one wild and magical time. Now she’s a coward in the face of a glimmer of a yes: too afraid to call Grace back, and too afraid to dismount the swing and return to her lukewarm house. 

Eventually her feet get cold, and there’s only one square of light coming from indoors. Jacob’s done with NPR jazz for the night, done with everything but getting a glass of water and heading upstairs. If she waits any longer, he’ll be waiting for her in bed. She hoists herself down from the swing, gathers her stupid belongings, and makes her slow way across the yard.

When Frankie walks in through the kitchen door, Jacob looks up from the sink and smiles. _Shit_ , Frankie thinks. She’d told him she’d finish the rest of the dishes wherever he left off, but he’s done every last one, even the casserole dish left to soak since yesterday. “That was a marathon phone call,” he says. 

“Sort of.”

Jacob gestures to the cabinet of glassware, to his full glass of water. “Want me to get you one?”

“No, thanks.”

“Hey, why so glum? Talking to Grace is supposed to make you happy.”

“We almost had phone sex.” Frankie’s eyes go wide, as if she isn’t the person who just said those words. 

Jacob sets his water glass down hard, puts both hands flat on the counter. 

“I’m so sorry—” Frankie starts, but Jacob extends his palm in her direction. 

“I was never going to win,” he finally says, and he never was. It’s an undeserving defeat, a defeat despite his kindness, the offer of adventure, a beautiful home in a new place, and the even more magnificent gift of patience. “I was _never_ going to win.” There’s a pacifistic part of Frankie that would like to suggest that it wasn’t a competition, but she stays quiet. “We won’t pretend to have a conversation about how it didn’t mean anything.”

Frankie shakes her head no. She wouldn’t do that to Grace. 

“You’re only half unpacked, really, so let’s pack it up and you can figure out your next move from the Days Inn on Cerrillos Road.”

\--

It takes just a couple of hours to pack, which means it’s one in the morning when they’re done. The bed of Jacob’s truck is about a third full, which makes sense considering that, nearly every day for the last two months, she’s searched fruitlessly for a possession of hers before realizing it was still at the beach house.

Before Frankie left La Jolla, Grace had worried—out loud, of course—about Frankie’s decision to sell her car, and for the first time she understands what Grace meant by “trading one kind of dependency for another.” What if Jacob wasn’t a good person? Frankie would be shoving items in the back of a taxi right now, making sleepy decisions about what to keep. There’s still the question of how to get home, but she’ll tackle that in the real morning. 

“It’s late,” she says after Jacob hoists the last bag into the truck bed. “I could stay on the couch tonight.”

“No, you’re leaving now.” Jacob’s voice is rigid, like he’s trying not to cry but there are already tears in his throat. “There’ll be a landline in your room. You can rack up a long-distance bill having phone sex the old fashioned way.”

“You know I love you,” Frankie says, the terror of endings bubbling inside her. “You have to believe that I do.”

“But you love Grace more. Come on, get in the car.”

While Frankie checks in, Jacob standing a few purposeful feet behind, the motel desk clerk glances through the window, sees the boxes and bags in the truck. If the kid is worried about a man dropping a woman off at a motel in the middle of the night, all he says is “Will this be an extended stay?”

“No,” says Frankie. “Just a rest stop. Two nights max.”

It takes them three trips to load everything into Frankie’s ground-floor room, and then they stand together outside. There’s nothing but the echoey parking lot, the human-tinted outdoor smell of cigarettes and asphalt and an over-chlorinated pool, the straightforward sky. Jacob doesn’t hug her goodbye. They don’t kiss. They don’t talk about when they’ll be ready to speak to each other again. It’s all so formal and horrible, and Frankie feels as if she’s been fired from a job she’d worked very hard to get. _Thank you for the opportunity_ , she thinks. 

She stands in the doorway and watches Jacob walk to the driver’s side of the truck. He pauses, hand on the door handle. “Maybe Grace will teach you how to be an adult,” he says. “She’ll certainly try to scare you into it. Have fun eating unsalted vegetables with a drunk person.”

Frankie is sure that’s how it seems, but Jacob is wrong. He thinks Grace has been talking about sodium this entire time. But even Grace knows you have to use at least a little salt.


	3. Chapter 3 (Bud)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When Bud got the second call that morning, the one from Grace, he was surprised but shouldn’t have been._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to thelastgoodname and sapphoshands (kathryne) for helping me figure out usage of "Frankie" vs "Mom" vs "his mom."

Something about the way Grace’s legs are folded against the passenger seat of the car reminds Bud of a deer, and she sort of looks like one, too: the one in the headlights. She’s been trying to sleep, which amounts to crossing and uncrossing her ankles, and readjusting the way her travel pillow—the kind you buy for $14.95 in a color you dislike during an airport layover and are stuck with forever—is shoved between her head and the door. A few times an hour, her phone vibrates, and then she types furiously for a minute or two before setting it back in the console. 

When Bud got the second call that morning, the one from Grace, he was surprised but shouldn’t have been. “Frankie told me she’s already talked to you,” Grace had said, sounding a little hoarse. It was 5:30 in the morning. “I didn’t sleep last night, so it would be awhile before I could drive.” 

And although Bud immediately cringed, and spent the whole time he packed his overnight bag wondering if state-run rest areas sell vodka, and if there was a buddy movie about an old lady road-tripping with her ex-husband’s stepson that he could cram for instructional purposes, he’s feeling pretty good now that they’re six hours into a thirteen-hour drive. They’ll get to Santa Fe in a single day, and he has to hand it to his mom: if she and Jacob had to break up, it was convenient for it to happen on a Friday night so they could make the drive over a weekend. Convenient too that his travel companion is Grace, who wants this experience to be as brief as possible, who barely wants to stop for gas, much less linger over a meal or a roadside attraction.

“We’ll have to stop more on our way back,” she says at one point, freshly back in the car after their first rest stop in several hours. “So Frankie can walk around.” She presses her fingers together, hard enough it might hurt. “She shouldn’t travel in a car for this long, but I don’t see a better option.”

Bud nods, wondering without having to say anything if tomorrow’s Sunday drive will turn into a two-day ordeal. For a second he feels a pull, like there’s a question he should ask Grace. But the words aren’t there to join the hunch, and instead he hits play on their millionth episode of the StartUp podcast. 

When the sky is fully dark and they still have a couple hours on the road, they concede that they have to stop for a real meal. At the exit they choose, there’s only one restaurant offering more than the same drive-thru options—oil-soaked burger and fries, anemic salad—they picked at for lunch. “It’ll be nice to stretch our legs,” Grace says reasonably, reminding him of the time before she was his mom’s best friend, when she was just Uncle Robert’s wife, a tense woman trained to be polite and passive-aggressive about inconveniences. 

The restaurant is a casual sit-down family place, slow enough at 8 p.m. that the middle-aged brunette hostess goes ahead and takes their drink orders once she’s shown them to a table next to an heirloom-laden wall. She beams patronizingly at Bud as she writes down his request for unsweet tea with lemon, then turns the same sugary smile to Grace. “And for _Mom_?” she asks in a much louder voice than she’d used on Bud. It’s as if the casual racism and ageism are in a race to figure out who’s stronger.

“A vodka martini, very dry—” Grace says.

“Stepmom,” Bud says at the same time, which is weird. He’s saying it to correct the hostess, but he doesn’t have a stepmother. Besides, he’s spent years trying to remember that he doesn’t have to explain himself or his family to racist, well-meaning white people, and apparently that lesson has gone right out the window. 

“Stepmom!” says the hostess. “That is just wonderful. And I am _so sorry_ , ma’am, but we only have a license for beer and wine.” 

“Then my son and I will need a moment with the menu.” Grace buries her face in the laminated pages, emerges when the woman is gone. “I thought this was New Mexico, but we’ve found the whitest restaurant in the world. And I’m saying this as a person who grew up in Connecticut.”

“And who lives in La Jolla.”

“Fair.” 

When the meal arrives, they eat without speaking, and it’s only when her wine is gone and she’s eaten most of her food that Grace breaks the silence with an abrupt question: “How’s Allison doing?” 

Since his mom left, he’s seen Grace more than he expected to, but Allison’s still opting out of family events at a rate that scares him a little. Bud remembers—and wishes he didn’t, though the alternative is so much worse—that Grace is the one who gave Allison the vibrator. “She’s okay, I think.” Grace raises her eyebrows at that. “Yeah, she’s good. Really nauseous. Tired. But we’re excited.”

There’s a little bit of roast chicken left on Grace’s plate. She pushes it around with her fork, follows it with her gaze, then she sets the fork down and looks Bud in the eyes. “You want to know the best possible thing you could do for Allison?”

Bud raises his chin in assent. 

“Before the baby’s born, I mean. Acknowledge how much she’s giving up. In words. You said she’s tired? She’s exhausted. They say the sleep deprivation of pregnancy is supposed to prepare you for having an actual child. And she can’t drink, and her body is changing—in all the obvious ways, but in subtle ways too, and it’s impossible to anticipate them all. And—have you thought about giving up your career?”

“Well, no.”

“Didn’t think so. Has she?”

“Not forever, but she’s considering an extended leave.”

“Her relationship to her work will never be the same again, or at least it won’t be for many years. Tell her you appreciate it. Tell her you see how many things are shifting for her.” 

There’s a tiny voice in Bud’s head that says _I have_ , and like she’s reading his mind, Grace clarifies: “Every day. Make it a normal thing to talk about.” Somewhere in her eyes: _No one did it for me_. 

“And when the baby comes?”

“That one’s easy. Change fifty percent of the diapers and take fifty percent of the early mornings. I’m sure you were already planning on doing that.”

Bud nods, already on more level ground. “Thanks, Grace.”

Not long after, their waitress, who’s a big improvement on the hostess, drops off the check. Grace pays, dismissing Bud when he pantomimes grabbing his own wallet. 

The last two hours of the drive are quiet. No podcasts, no music, no conversation, no pretending to nap. Just highway noise and more frequent vibrations from Grace’s phone, the glow of the screen beating back a small portion of the dark. When they pull into the Days Inn parking lot, Grace scans the building for room numbers. “She’s in 108,” she says.

“I assume she knows we’re here?”

Grace nods, pulling herself out of the car the second Bud puts the car in park, but then she waits for him to knock on the door. When he does, his mom emerges almost instantly, framed by an entryway lined with cardboard boxes, a couple suitcases, and a few garbage bags. Frankie hugs Bud first, whispers “Thank you, Nwabudike” into his ear. When the hug is over, she squeezes his shoulders and pulls back to look at him, taking him in the way she often does even if it’s been only a couple days since they’ve seen each other. She walks to the car next, because Grace is still standing back there, her hand resting on the side mirror, face inscrutable. Bud feels almost intrusive, watching them go into each other’s arms, but it’s so much information that it’s hard to look away. He’s pretty sure he has the answer to the question of where Grace will sleep tonight, so he walks around to the front of the motel to book himself a room. 

Bud feels a little lonely by the time he’s settled. It’s late, nearly midnight, but he heads down the sidewalk toward his mom and Grace’s room, figuring he’ll know when he gets there if it would be a good idea to knock on the door and say goodnight, to offer to get them ice or extra towels or whatever it is you can get more of when you’re traveling. 

By the time he’s past 112, then 110, he hears crying, and when he stands in front of the door to 108, he knows for certain that someone is weeping against it. He’s overheard his mom cry before without her realizing it, the big soulful cries you try to keep your children from witnessing, a sound he’ll never forget. It’s very clear that the person crying right now isn’t his mom. This is Grace, sleep- and routine- and liquor-deprived, but she’s crying the way you’d cry about a lover, with the murmur of his mother’s voice behind her. He can’t make out the words, but the cadence is _I’m sorry_ , _I’m sorry_ , _I’m sorry_. 

Bud walks back to his room as quickly as possible. 

In bed, kept awake because his brain tricks him into feeling road motion every time he closes his eyes, he suddenly remembers Allison’s response to a care package his mother had sent them after she’d been in Santa Fe only a couple of weeks. The package contained a pregnancy journal; a family of unevenly crocheted socks in large, medium, and extra-tiny; a gallon-sized ziploc bag stuffed with past-their-prime zucchini muffins. “I like your mom,” Allison had said, the _especially when she’s 900 miles away_ unspoken but practically audible. “She’s, like, this elderly bisexual tooth fairy from the desert!” It was such a strange thing to say, and only partially true, but now Bud concedes that while “from the desert” might have been wishful thinking on Allison’s part, she might have been right about everything else.

\--

It takes a long time, and two separate sacrifices to a parking lot dumpster, and an against-the-rules Goodwill donation drop-off prior to store opening (“Were the Santa Fe sweatshirts for me? Were you gonna dole them out over the eight nights of Hanukkah, or hand them over all at once?” Grace snapped, annoyed even though Frankie was in the act of getting rid of them, and in response she addressed the sweatshirts directly: “Return from whence you came!”), but by six-thirty in the morning they manage to make the rest of Frankie’s possessions fit in the trunk and half of the backseat, and there’s nothing to do then but check out and hit the road.

Frankie waits with Bud in the short check-out line at the front desk. “There’s a great breakfast spot not far from here,” she says hopefully. “You’d love it.”

Grace rises from her seat by the door. “I know a great breakfast spot too.” She marches over to the continental breakfast counter, moving a million times faster than all the schlubs sitting around spooning cereal into their mouths. She yanks three bananas from a bunch, splashes coffee into three cups, hands everything out. “We’re doing this trip in one day, and we’re leaving as soon as we’ve checked out.” But the second she’s distributed breakfast, she looks from Frankie’s face to the cup of black coffee in her hand. “Damn it,” she says, rolling her eyes. She takes back Frankie’s coffee and returns to the counter, where she adds a splash of milk and about a quarter of a packet of sugar. “Here,” she says as she gives the coffee back to Frankie. “That taste okay?” 

Frankie nods as she swallows. “Thanks.”

“I just want to go home,” Grace says. She drops her voice lower, though Bud can still hear absolutely everything. It feels like he’s spent days hearing absolutely everything. “I’ll take you to the Fig Tree tomorrow, or Snooze, or anywhere you want.”

“Oh, _now_ you wanna hang out in Hillcrest,” Frankie says, and Grace only glares. “All right, I get it. Raincheck on real breakfast.”

\--

After twenty-six hours of driving in two days, Bud longs for his own bed, soft and clean and warm, with Allison waiting in it. There are only a few more streets, a few more turns, before he can drop the moms and their many emotions off at the beach house and get a little rest before Monday hits.

When Bud glances to his right to double-check his blind spot before changing lanes, there’s Grace next to him in the front passenger seat, doing that thing people do when they’re trying to cry as subtly as possible, without changing anything about their face. “Oh,” Bud says, because he can’t pretend he hasn’t noticed, not after this weekend. “You okay?”

“I’m obviously the only person who saw the dead raccoon in the headlights back there,” Grace says. “Just lying perfectly still, no way of knowing what was ahead. And, and somebody’s probably waiting for it at home, with no idea that it’s never coming back.” 

Frankie leans forward from the back seat, squeezes Grace’s shoulder. “That metaphor makes me so proud of you,” she says. “Grace, you’re using figurative language at the time in your life when you need it most!”

“And also,” Bud says carefully, “no one in this car is a dead raccoon.”

Grace sniffs. “Thank you, Bud.”

“That’s exactly right,” says Frankie. “Exactly right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and for letting me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4 (Frankie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Now she’s alone in the studio with Grace, Bud’s headlights streaking shadows across the wall, the sound of tire friction against the driveway._

Before Frankie knows it, Bud finishes stacking her stuff in her studio and gives her a kiss on the cheek. Bud and Grace say goodbye in a spate of side-hug and clasping hands and speaking over each other but saying nothing, and for a second Frankie wonders if they had time during their road trip to come up with a secret handshake or special signal. Then logic takes over and reminds her that they’re just tired and clumsy. “Thank you,” she says, so grateful for them both, with no idea how else to put it. The two most uptight people in her family took to the highway for _her_. 

Now she’s alone in the studio with Grace, Bud’s headlights streaking shadows across the wall, the sound of tire friction against the driveway. Although she won’t be able to do a thing until she’s gotten some sleep, for once she’s excited about a cleanup task: she can’t wait to make the bags and boxes disappear, wants the house and studio to absorb her belongings seamlessly. The studio was full enough before she left that it looks nearly the same as it always did, but it’s musty, permeated with the dull smell of two months spent holding in the same air. Frankie breathes in deeply until she can find the familiar scent of paint beneath the layer of disuse. 

“I should’ve come in and aired it out,” Grace says. She lingers in the doorway, as if unsure if she’s invited. “I couldn’t.” 

“I get it.”

She was only gone two months, but being back here makes Frankie feel like a visitor to a new country, armed with a few key phrases. _Thank you. I’m sorry. I get it._ She can already say “I love you” in English, French, Spanish, and Swahili. Maybe she can learn it in this country, too. 

The morning she moved to Santa Fe, she’d hugged Grace for the first time in too many days, the type of hug that feels like you’re holding onto an entire person, and said “I love you.” Grace had pulled back, panic in her eyes. Frankie thought it was the panic of not wanting to say it back, but now she knows—and she’d known even twenty minutes down the road—that it was the panic of wanting to say it. She’s thought of that moment every day since, toggles between the hug, the panicked expression, the too-late moment of realization, and back again.

“I’m staying out of your way,” Grace had said on the phone, when was it, only two nights ago? 

And then, last night, instead of “I love you,” it was “You left me” repeated over and over, like there was a line-up of hurt she had to air first, and love couldn’t jump the queue. She’d started saying it not five minutes after she and Bud arrived at the motel, started as soon as the door shut behind her and she’d had a moment in the bathroom, a drink of water. “ _You left me_ ,” she’d said. “And even before you left, I felt like I couldn’t go near you. There was so much I wanted to tell you, even after the balloon, but before I could figure out how, you left me alone.” She’d wept hard, her head pressed into the door, right next to the posted sheet containing the Emergency Evacuation Plan and maximum room rates, her forehead pushing at something hard even though Frankie was right behind her with soft shoulders, a neck that wanted Grace against it. Frankie had repeated _I’m sorry_ over and over, unmoored and lonely inside the pain she’d caused. 

She stayed lonely the whole drive back, had to push through it to make conversation. Feels lonely even now, because it’s the way a person has to feel if they’ve made enough mistakes.

“You want to stay with me tonight?” Grace asks from her spot in the doorframe, her voice soft and low like it belongs to the room. She smiles, the particular one that often springs onto her face when she asks an important question. 

Frankie nods, too tired to talk, much less quip, and Grace waits patiently while she digs a clean t-shirt and underwear out of one bag, pajama pants from another, toiletries from another. When she’s ready, Grace leads her from the studio to the house with a hand against her back.

The acutely familiar smell of the house hits Frankie harder than the mustiness of her studio. Your own house shouldn’t smell like anything to you; you’re supposed to notice the smells layered on top of the invisible base scent of home: a new candle, a cloud of countertop cleaner, a pot of stew simmering on the stove. Tonight the house smells only the way it always does, and yet she notices. 

They stop in the kitchen for a drink for Grace, who makes a quick, businesslike vodka rocks; it’s a relatively rare choice for her, albeit adjacent to a frequent choice, but she doesn’t bother to explain, or offer Frankie anything. She sits at the kitchen island with her lowball glass, and instead of sitting down too, Frankie stands next her, a hand on the back of the fabric-covered chair. “Hey,” she says, peering at Grace’s drink. “Don’t you want any lime in that?”

Grace shrugs, so Frankie sets her pajamas and toiletries bag on the counter and walks over to the fridge. She knows exactly which drawer contains limes, but she takes her time because she wants to do inventory. The fridge isn’t as well-stocked as it was when she left for Santa Fe, but it’s in better shape than she’d feared. At quick glance, she sees lots of yogurt, a couple bottles of wine, assorted vegetables, bacon, chicken breasts, and a small half-eaten wheel of gouda cheese, the sight of which makes her want to cry. She checks on her small but very hot collection of hot sauce, which lives in the door, and is pleased to see that a couple of the bottles have been used in her absence. Then she remembers that she’d better hurry or Grace will have finished her drink, lime juice or no lime juice. She grabs a lime from the crisper drawer, cuts a wedge out of it, and sets the rest on a shelf next to a container of almond milk. “Thanks,” Grace says, but she doesn’t move to take the slice, so Frankie squeezes the juice into the drink herself, drops the rind in afterwards. 

“At least make it taste good,” Frankie says.

“It does,” says Grace, and Frankie can’t stop at the barrier of the chair this time. She puts her arm around Grace’s shoulders. She feels the quick flinch, then an exhale, a settling. 

Frankie feels a lot of different ways about Grace’s drinking. She’s been hurt by things Grace has said drunk, she has worried about her health, she’s wanted to wade after her into the pool of alcohol and see what she’s hiding there. She’s wanted to grab Grace by her bird-wrists and beg her to be nicer to herself. She’s been frustrated by the near-ubiquity of alcohol in many of their days. She’s appreciated early evenings on the patio, smoking up while Grace drinks, trading little hits of each other’s vices back and forth with a dumb human happiness that’s part substance and part friendship. She’s enjoyed—really enjoyed—the expression on Grace’s face when she sees a martini, that moment when she looks at a martini like she’d like to fuck it. 

That last one reminds her of something complicated, because the past forty-eight hours have convinced her that her relationship with Grace is about to undergo some pretty intense changes, that they’ve already long past begun, and for that to happen in all the ways Frankie desperately wants it to happen, they’re going to have to discuss alcohol. Frankie can’t imagine—especially not at the beginning of a relationship—having anything but sober sex with a partner. And she can’t even begin to guess at the shape that conversation will take.

Tonight, though—if tonight’s anything like last night, they’re going to sleep quiet and nervous next to each other in bed, not exactly touching, but making no effort to stay away from each other either. 

And for now, standing next to Grace in a pool of nighttime lamplight, everywhere else dark, she feels nothing but tenderness. The room is full of relief: her arm has longed to hold Grace again, and now it’s happening, as glorious as any thirst momentarily quenched. It gives her empathy for anyone with a craving. She wants Grace to have this cool little comfort, so much so that she’d like to kiss the top of her head while she drinks. She doesn’t, but she wishes she could.

“Mallory’s divorce is final on Tuesday.”

Frankie knows better than to think the statement has come out of the blue. “How’s she doing? Is Tuesday gonna be celebration or mourning?” She wishes she already knew the answer to that question. But neither Grace nor Brianna have talked to her about Mallory’s business on the phone, at least not much, and Frankie hasn’t spoken to Mallory in weeks. 

“Neither,” says Grace. “She’s coming over for dinner. Coyote’s watching the kids so she can have some space.” She glances back at Frankie with a pleased little grin. “And she actually wanted to come here.”

“Need me to get out of the house that night?” It’s the sort of question they haven’t asked in a couple years, not since the days they were new to living together and pretended to relish time away from each other. Back then, the question wasn’t “should I leave?” but “couldn’t you?” 

Grace shakes her head. “No, she’ll be glad to see you.” She sighs, drains the last of her drink and pushes the glass a few inches away from her. “It’s your house too.” 

Frankie tightens her squeeze, and her right arm’s jealous. Her left arm has Grace to hold; her right arm wants something, too. Its empty hand could take Grace’s hand, or find a different grip on Grace’s shoulders, or trace the line of Grace’s arm, tell the small but pretty story of the way it lies on the counter, pointing the way to the empty glass. 

—

In the morning, she wakes into an anonymous grey sludge. She’s Frankie, she’s a person, she’s lying on her back, but the bed could be at any angle, the window could look onto any view, she might be anywhere in the world. Before she can stifle the gasp, she’s uttered it, but as loud as it is the sound might be swallowed and no one might ever hear it, because the air is all magma, all churn— 

“Hey, Frankie, it’s okay.” Grace’s voice, the day’s first solid thing. “You’re home.” She scoots until she’s lying right against Frankie’s side, and presses her face into the place where Frankie’s neck meets shoulder. “Go back to sleep,” she says, and her words bloom warm and ticklish against Frankie’s skin. She wraps an arm around Frankie’s waist, and Frankie will obviously never sleep again. 

But somehow, she does. They both do, and when they wake again the room is full of sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks so much for reading. I appreciate everyone who's let me know what they think so far, and I welcome feedback.


	5. Chapter 5 (Mallory)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She wants to sell her house, the house she picked out with Mitch—her ex-husband, Mitch, a guy she used to be married to, a guy who is no longer her husband—the big beautiful house she was so convinced she wanted._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to needled_ink_1975 for reading in advance.
> 
> A brief content warning: the topic was alluded to in the notes for Chapter 1, and this chapter contains a more pointed discussion of disordered eating--lots of mothers and daughters and food and long-ago misunderstandings. All the characters in this story are safe, and but please take care when deciding to read.

Mallory wants to move. Now that her divorce is final and she’s gotten that much room back in her brain, it’s the only thing she’s been able to think about all afternoon. She wants to sell her house, the house she picked out with Mitch—her ex-husband, Mitch, a guy she used to be married to, a guy who is no longer her husband—the big beautiful house she was so convinced she wanted. And did want, she’s pretty sure. Until she didn’t.

She thinks about it as she backs down the long driveway, Coyote standing on the porch, kicking out a leg and using his foot to wave goodbye because he has a twin in each arm. Maddy and Macklin chase each other on the front lawn, and don’t look up as she leaves until she honks the horn and attracts the goodbye she deserves. _A house closer to the water, maybe._ The proximity to the ocean would more than make up for what she’d have to sacrifice in square footage.

She thinks about it on the drive to her mom and Frankie’s house. She has to consider whether she can stay in the kids’ current school district, of course, and whether the yard has enough space for Coyote’s tiny house, but when it comes to the features of the house itself? There’s only one person’s wish list that will truly matter this time, and that’s her own. Whether she rents or buys, her next house will be a place she chooses because _she_ likes it and wants to live there, wants to wake up in the morning surrounded by those particular walls. Wants to cook there and clean there and raise her kids there. Wants—as soon as she finds a job—to come home from work and be there. She wants a house with hardwood floors, an open kitchen, dormer windows. _A reading nook_ , she thinks, _for anybody who wants some time alone._

When her father sold the house she’d grown up in, Mallory hardly felt a thing. Everyone else seemed relieved to see the house go, and she decided she was, too. For months, she kept even the good memories at bay, but they eventually crept in, and it’s those memories...she chased Brianna through the dining room, heirloom plates rattling on their display shelves, and they laughed until they cried about _something_ ; years later, they snuck their first drinks and blew their first clouds of cigarette smoke out an upstairs window, howled with the same laughter...it’s those memories that hurt now that she can never enter the house again. The pervasive emptiness, the parental wrongness: those hurt in a different way. They’re just bitter tastes, largely explained now that her parents lead separate lives. Old happinesses, the specific smell and sound and feel of them, are what really stab you in the heart. 

If she sells her house, some version of the same thing will happen to her kids: some memories will bury themselves in the house forever, and others will grow sharper and stronger in the house’s lack. In hindsight, when they’re adults, or at least old enough to experience nostalgia, even happy things might make them sad. But she’ll sell. By the time she pulls up to the beach house, she knows she will. 

The beach house is her mother’s true home, and more specifically it’s her mother’s true home with Frankie, as strange as that is. Thank God Frankie is back from her adventure, has saved her mom from having to make her own series of awful decisions about selling and buying, leaving and staying, how to make the most of being alone. Grace seems disinterested in anything but remaining single, so Mallory is relieved that she has her best friend back under the same roof. Is honestly relieved she has a best friend at all. Grace has been unhappy for the last two months, infused with a brittleness Mallory had nearly forgotten.

And so, although Bergsteins barge in and Hansons announce their arrivals, and although Mallory’s never lived here before, doesn’t have the same right to the beach house that its residents have, she doesn’t knock. This is a Hanson-Bergstein house, and Mallory Hanson has a relationship with this house. She owns some of the memories threaded through it, and she rushes right in before she can over-think the choice. 

Mallory can tell from the location of voices that her mom and Frankie are both in the kitchen. She walks straight there, but pauses before entering the room so she can set down her bag in the hallway. Grace is turned away from Mallory, standing at the sink filling a pot with water. She’s wearing jeans and her beige comfort sweater, not that she’ll ever know Mallory thinks of it that way. Mallory didn’t see her wear it the entire time Frankie was gone. Frankie stands on the other side of the island from Grace, with her back facing Mallory, too. Frankie is hunched, as if she’s about to launch a surprise, and Mallory hangs back, undetected and hoping to stay that way so she doesn’t spoil whatever Frankie has planned.

“Look, Grace,” Frankie says, and Grace turns around, sees not Mallory, who’s hiding in earnest now, but the very tip of a baguette, the rest of which Frankie holds behind the island like a puppet. She raises the baguette in slow increments. “It’s your worst nightmare.”

Mallory cringes. Is the loaf supposed to be phallic? Or is this baguette just a baguette, a carbohydrate soldier marching up a hill? 

Grace presses her hand against her stomach, like she’s been hit there, but softly. Just briefly, she squints her eyes like she’s been hit there, too. Mallory’s heart pounds. She doesn’t know why this is familiar, why this reads as violence. Her mom’s never been in physical danger, as far as she knows, has never been abused. But language is bending her, and Mallory has seen this before. Has seen her mom recover from it, too, normalize her expression within a split second so she can barrel past sadness—Mallory thinks it’s sadness—to a higher plane without acknowledging the comment at all.

This time, Grace speaks. “You know what doesn’t help? _That_.” Her voice wavers. “Your constant jokes, like you’re showing an invisible audience how well-adjusted you are. You know, well-adjusted compared to me.”

“Grace—” 

“Or are you convinced it’s for my benefit? Oh, wow, holy shit, I’ll just eat a bunch of bread and feel really happy about it. Never thought of that before. Thanks, Frankie!”

Frankie stands up all the way but lowers her head.

Grace continues. “You know what my worst nightmare is? The thing that’s kept me up at night for months? The thought of one of us dying before we get the chance to be together. At the rate we’re going, it could still come true.”

Mallory thought her heart was pounding before, but it’s racing now. She feels sweaty under her arms, nervous and queasy and hot, like she’s a little kid about to be in trouble, or about to have her life changed forever. 

Frankie tries to counter: “You’re the one who hopped out of bed this morning like you couldn’t wait to get away from me, but—” Grace shakes her head, her sharp expression turned sharper, and it cuts Frankie off. “I’m sorry, Grace.” 

“Why would anyone have named me that?” She sets the pot of water down on the range. The metal scrapes against the burner grate, and some water splashes out the side.

Frankie makes her way around the island, and Mallory steps backward, stays hidden. “Grace,” Frankie says again, and when she says it this time, it sounds like an argument against the belief that the name doesn’t fit. “I’m sorry. It’s a horrible habit, those jokes.” 

“I’m trying,” Grace says. “Believe it or not.”

“I know, honey,” Frankie says. “You deserve everything.” And instead of everything, Frankie hands her the bread. She puts her freed hand on Grace’s cheek, and Grace’s eyes close when the touch lands. 

“Are you ever going to kiss me again?” Grace murmurs. 

Mallory tiptoes backward until she can’t see anything. She doesn’t have to look to know that her mother is kissing Frankie, is kissing her best friend, that she had her mother right but not right enough, that maybe she should have credited Grace Hanson with a bigger life all along. “I’m here!” she shouts when she’s nearly all the way back to the door. “Just headed back to the car to grab the wine!” 

She hears her mother gasp, then a soft thunk that must be the baguette hitting the floor. Hears Frankie say “Five-second rule!” and laugh, a sound more nervous than mirthful. 

The wine is in the bag she already brought inside, but she goes out to the car anyway, waits a few seconds, practically stomps her feet as she walks back in the house. “Hey, Mom! Hey, Frankie! Welcome home!”

As soon as she crosses the threshold into the kitchen, Frankie rushes around the island to hug her. Grace, red-faced, stays by the stove top and watches. It’s a big long embrace, Frankie rocking from one foot to the other. By the time the hug is over, the red has almost gone out of Grace’s face, and she makes her way to Mallory too. Her hug is brief but firm. “Holding up okay?” she asks, and Mallory nods. 

The kitchen smells familiar, but in a far-off way, and as Mallory looks around she realizes it’s because they’re preparing her favorite meal from childhood: spaghetti and meatballs, salad with ranch dressing (or an olive oil-lemon juice vinaigrette for Grace), crusty bread. Grace handles the pasta, Frankie chucks the offending baguette into the hot oven, and as they wrap up the cooking everyone stands around the island drinking wine, first pinot grigio from the fridge, then, when the food is ready and they’re seated around the table, the cabernet sauvignon Mallory brought from home. “The menu was Frankie’s idea,” Grace says. “She said it would be better to make an old favorite than your current favorite.” 

“There’s been one upgrade, though,” Frankie says. She puts two meatballs, each from a different pan, atop the mountain of spaghetti and marinara on Mallory’s plate. “One of these meatballs is TVP and the other is turkey. You can let us know which you like best.” 

The TVP isn’t bad, but her favorite is obviously the turkey meatball. It has exactly the flavor she wants; it’s from the recipe she’s been eating since she was a little kid. But she chews each carefully, makes a show of contemplating the texture, the seasoning, the whole experience. 

“She likes mine best,” Grace says.

“She’s sort of right,” Mallory admits. “Sorry, Frankie.” 

Together, Grace and Frankie mother her, and the longer Mallory sits at the table, the more it sinks in: with the exception of the past two months, it’s been this way a long time. Mallory has heard everyone who knows them poke at least a little fun at their friendship, but it _works_. Grace has questions about how a dispute over Mallory’s car wrapped up, wants to make sure the house is safe, helps her weigh the pros and cons of taking care of her legal name change immediately versus giving herself a little break from the legal system. Frankie wants to know what she wore to get divorced, wants to admire her ring-less finger even though she removed her rings weeks ago, takes a picture of Mallory’s hand and suggests they do an anti-engagement photo shoot after dinner. They both ask a lot of questions about how the kids are doing, and while Grace’s questions are about behavior and Frankie’s questions are about feelings, they both want to know the answers to all of them. A photo shoot sounds like hell, and rehashing the car saga makes her furious all over again, but for the first time in weeks, she’s pretty sure she feels exactly the way she’s supposed to feel.

They all keep looking at the baguette, though. It sits untouched. So much has happened to it, and even though Grace and Frankie don’t—she hopes, anyway—know that Mallory knows its story, she can’t bring herself to tear into it. “Cursed loaf,” Frankie says when there’s a brief silence. She shrugs. “But it’s from the farmer’s market, it’s my favorite—” she glances at Grace “—it’s whole wheat, and I have a lot of extra sauce on my plate.” She rips off a hunk and passes it to Mallory, who does the same, then passes it to her mother, uncertain if it’s kinder to follow through on the social obligation or to usurp it in favor of known history. 

Grace takes a small piece and returns the loaf to the cutting board at center of the table. Mallory tries not to stare as she pulls off a little of the bread with her thumb and index finger, puts it into her mouth. Mallory glances back down at her plate, and remembers, like her mother’s voice from the past emanates from her own head: _“No junk food in the house.”_ It might as well have been the eleventh commandment, and she and Brianna obeyed it without choice until they were old enough to start getting an allowance, old enough to walk to the store by themselves after school. Mallory kept her candy in her locker at school, played field hockey in the fall and ran track in the spring, never took second helpings at dinner. Brianna joined the basketball team but never went to practice, kept up the charade until it was time for the first game and she had to tell Robert and Grace that there was no point in going because she wasn’t actually a basketball player, told everyone that it was worth getting grounded to have those weeks of freedom after school. Brianna would stand right in front of Grace and eat a Snickers bar, unwrap a second one as soon as she’d finished the first. “You can’t stop me,” she’d say around a mouthful, chocolate in her teeth. Mallory can see her mother’s face: the expression she remembers as disgust and now recognizes as pain. Brianna was the queen of second helpings, and Grace would compensate by only eating half of what was on her own plate. Mallory was in the middle, neither gorging nor starving, and Robert kept himself out of the whole thing, which might have been the worst sin of all.

When Mallory snaps out of it, her mother and Frankie are staring at each other and smiling. They’re nearly done with their dinners, and Mallory is the one who needs to catch up.

“Marriage is awful, isn’t it,” Grace says. She stabs the last of her salad with her fork. “Well, straight marriage.” She blushes. “Well. Marriage.” 

“It’s not great,” says Mallory.

“I’m happy for you, sweetheart,” Grace says as soon as she’s swallowed. “If you don’t want to, you never have to do that again.” 

“We’ll support you no matter what happens,” adds Frankie. “But seriously, congratulations.” 

The buzzer on the washing machine sounds, and Grace stands. “Excuse me,” she says. “I’ll be right back. We’re still getting Frankie settled—apparently Sunday was going to be laundry day in Santa Fe.” 

“So, how much were you here for?” Frankie asks as soon as Grace is gone. “All three of us know you didn’t have to go back to the car for the wine.” 

“Well,” Mallory says. No point in lying. “Pretty much everything?”

“So you were here for the kiss. What about the mortality part?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the part where I made an eating disorder joke?”

“Yeah. I came in on that.”

Frankie sighs. “We might need a bunch of those Mary Poppins bags just to have a place to put all of our emotional baggage, but I came back because of your mom, Mal.” She wipes her mouth on her napkin, sets it down and looks Mallory in the eye. “I mean, there’s a lot of stuff I missed about this place, and I couldn’t stand the thought of being away when Bud and Allison have the baby, and I hated being so far from all of you. But I could have survived doing all that long distance if I had to.” 

Mallory nods, solemn. She remembers bringing Mitch home after they’d been dating a few months, her mother sitting pleasantly but quietly while her father asked Mitch questions. Now she feels—not a reversal, exactly, but a responsibility. “You and Mom love each other,” she says. “I’m glad for you.”

“I’m glad for us, too,” Frankie says. “And I think we’ll be a lot gladder in a few days.” 

Mallory very decidedly doesn’t ask what that means, which is just as well, because Grace returns to the table. “How about I make some decaf,” Mallory suggests. “I’m sick of the divorce, but we should probably talk about my eavesdropping problem.” 

“I know you saw everything,” Grace says. She flashes a feisty little frown, and embarrassment and hope and happiness lurk a millimeter beneath the surface. 

“Heard, not saw,” Mallory clarifies. “Sort of.” On the way to the coffeemaker, she pauses behind her mother’s chair, puts her hands on her shoulders, gives a gentle squeeze. “I’ll manage Brianna,” she says. She wants to congratulate, apologize, protect, ask a million questions, but first she goes to make the coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, once again, to everyone reading and following this story. It means so much, and I welcome your feedback and thoughts anytime! <3


	6. Chapter 6 (Grace)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Who named you?” Frankie asks, and she pushes up the sleeve of Grace’s sweater, strokes her arm from the crease of her elbow to the crease of her wrist._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned in the notes for Chapter 1, one of the plotlines in this story is alcohol dependency. This chapter discusses it more explicitly than it's been discussed in previous chapters. All the characters in this story are safe.

But sometimes when I get my horns in a thing—  
a wonder, a grief or a line of her—it is a sticky and ruined  
      fruit to unfasten from,

despite my trembling.

Let me call my anxiety, _desire_ , then.  
Let me call it, _a garden_.

      — from “From the Desire Field” by Natalie Diaz

When Mallory’s gone, they finish the last of the dishes in what feels like silence, though of course they exchange phrases like “Pass me that towel?” and “I already added detergent.” When they’re done, Frankie rolls her gauzy black sleeves back down her arms, takes the dish towel from Grace’s hands, and hangs it up to dry. “Sit with me?” she asks, and Grace assumes she’s going to follow Frankie outside to the patio, to the place where they always used to talk, but Frankie stops at the blue couch nearest the kitchen. She sits close to the middle, at the edge of one of the two large cushions, and eases Grace down into the smaller remaining spot, between Frankie and the closest arm of the couch.

“Who named you?” Frankie asks, and she pushes up the sleeve of Grace’s sweater, strokes her arm from the crease of her elbow to the crease of her wrist.

“My mother.” Grace has to look away for a moment, because nerves are firing up and down her arm, each a flickering star. Her cheekbones tingle because repercussions from every touch land in her face; she isn’t even sure how that’s possible. “Um,” she says, then glances at Frankie and tries again: “My father wanted an Elaine, after his favorite aunt, but for some reason Mother insisted.” She shrugs. “I got a good pun out of it, for the business.”

“What was Elaine like?” 

Did Frankie get this turned on when Grace tickled her arm on Say Yes Night? Had Grace sat on the curb next to a melting person and not even realized it? “I’m not entirely sure. I always liked her, but she died when I was pretty young. She never married, but she lived—” The words stop in her throat. “Well, gosh. Great Aunt Elaine was a lesbian.” 

Frankie smiles. “I had one of those too. Mine was a Mabel, though.” 

“I’m glad your name isn’t Mabel.”

“I’m glad your name isn’t Elaine, no matter how appropriate it would’ve been.” 

Grace rolls her eyes, but Frankie’s right. As far as she knows, the lesbians skipped a generation both above and below her. She wonders if any of her grandkids will turn out to be gay. Maybe it’ll be easier for them if they have her around, if she can—

Frankie moves on from her arm, swirls her fingers against Grace’s palm. “I love your name,” Frankie says. “I can think of two, no, three—” She pauses, counts by tapping her fingertips against the fleshy part of Grace’s thumb. “I can think of five definitions of the word ‘grace’— at least five—and they all fit you.” 

Grace chuckles in deflection, but she says “Thanks” all the same, just to be polite, and because the compliment sits warming in her chest. She doesn’t have to think of anything else to say, then, because Frankie leans closer and kisses her. They kiss and kiss, until the series of kisses turns into one continuous point of pressure. Grace gives into it, lets her mouth fall open, feels Frankie’s teeth against her bottom lip.

Frankie pulls away. “I’m getting ahead of myself,” she says. “Like always.” She sighs, and worries the fingers on her left hand against the fingers on her right. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Oh God,” Grace says before she can stop herself. Her thoughts take her to abrupt, unlikely places: Frankie has chlamydia, or she just remembered she’s angry at Grace because of something that happened years ago, or Sol’s having second thoughts about Robert.

“No!” Frankie says when she sees what must be an awful look on Grace’s face. “I love you,” she says. “And what I need to talk to you about isn’t bad.”

“I love you, too,” Grace says, and for the briefest of seconds Frankie shuts her eyes, as if in thanks. Grace has wondered about that phrase, has felt it pressing against her in deep want, has known she’d say it eventually, has hoped she’d get another chance to hear it and say it back. Not saying it on Frankie’s moving day might be her biggest regret, though there’s a lot of competition. The moment is right enough that some of Grace’s nervousness subsides, but her stomach’s going to ache until Frankie has said whatever she needs to say.

“I love you no matter what,” Frankie starts. “And that’s important, in this context. Because I want to have sex with you, simple as that. There’s no point in describing it euphemistically.” 

“But?”

“But for that to happen, I need to ask you for something, and I don’t think it’ll be easy for you.”

Grace knows what it is. She’ll do anything, but Frankie’s about to ask her to do the hardest thing of all. She’s stubborn. She waits for Frankie to say it.

“I need you to not drink,” Frankie says. “For sex. I need you to be sober for sex.” And then, because she can’t seem to stop saying “need” or “sober” or “sex,” she clarifies: “That goes for both of us. I need both of us to be sober for sex.” 

It’s probably bad that Grace’s head fills with a million questions: _What’s your definition of ‘sober’? / If I drink in the morning and we have sex at night, is that okay? / What about the afternoon? / How many hours beforehand? / Does this mean we’ll have to plan it every time? / What if we went to a play, and then out for a drink, and had such a nice time, and wanted to sleep together, genuinely wanted to, but couldn’t? / Is this forever? / Is there anything else I can give you instead?_

She doesn’t ask any of her questions. Instead: “It would feel like crawling into bed, but there’s no mattress.”

Frankie nods. “Whew. Okay. I can see that’d be pretty stressful.”

“I’ve never. I mean, I know that sounds awful, but I have never had sex without alcohol in my system. Not with anyone. Not even when I was seventeen.” She feels her arms tremble a little, though of course the problem isn’t a lack of alcohol in her system. 

“I thought you and that Jerome guy had pizza-inspired sex when you were seventeen.”

“Well, yes, pizza and stolen beers for him, stolen gin for me.” 

“What about in the morning?”

“I don’t recall ever—just believe me, okay? I’d know if I’d ever had sober sex. It’d have gone down in history.”

“Can you, though?” Frankie is quiet. “It doesn’t have to be every time, for all time. But in the beginning, for me, it does. And I’d like it to be on the table forever, as an option, or maybe even as our default. I mean, I want to be here, really, fully here, for that experience with you. And I want you here, too.” Frankie’s speech is up-tempo, a sure sign that she’s nervous.

 _I am here_ , Grace thinks, though Frankie has a point. She’s had three glasses of wine tonight, and while she certainly feels like herself, certainly feels capable of consent and reason, is sure she’d be able to listen carefully to everything Frankie needs and wants and doesn’t want, when she dives into herself she can feel the way her edges are a little fuzzed, the way everything in her periphery is softened. She thinks about Frankie’s last night without her, how her instinct had been to stay sober for their phone call. “Okay,” she says, aware of how long she’s paused. “I don’t want to be breathalyzed in bed, though. You can trust me.”

“Okay.” 

“For instance—if we decide we’re having sex on Saturday night, I just won’t drink at all on Saturday. That’s what you mean, don’t you?” she asks. When Frankie confirms, Grace continues. “It’ll be all right,” she says, hoping to reassure Frankie and herself. 

Frankie grins. “So, Saturday night?”

“It was an example.”

“I like that example. I like the thought of not having to wake up early the day after.”

She would. But honestly, Grace does too. She looks at her lap. Her stomach still hurts, spaghetti and bread and wine and this conversation. “You’re right: it won’t be easy. Staying sober, I mean. I’m sorry about that.”

“Oh,” Frankie says. She lays a hand on Grace’s thigh. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

—

The next morning, early enough that sunlight has only dimly lit the room, Grace is the first to wake up. She’s curled up on her side, facing away from Frankie, and she turns so she’s on her back and can tilt her head to look at her. Frankie’s still deeply asleep, breathing with little huffs. It’s not quite the snoring Grace claimed to have heard the first night they shared a bed, but even now that her hard heart has been softened by reciprocated love Grace wouldn’t consider Frankie a quiet sleeper. All week, Grace has been waking up a few times a night, has tried in these moments to replace her impatient thoughts with a reminder to herself: _not alone, not alone, not alone_ , a litany of one. The relief either lets her fall asleep again or makes it palatable to stay awake a while longer.

Frankie must give off a lot of heat when she sleeps, because Grace is overly warm, and before she can think too hard about it, she unbuttons her pale pink pajama top and slithers out of it with as little movement as possible. She tosses it onto the floor at the side of the bed, far enough out of reach that she won’t be able to collect it easily if she changes her mind, and then she turns again until she’s lying on her stomach. This morning, she won’t leave the bed until Frankie does. At some point, Frankie will wake up, and she’ll see the expanse of skin Grace is ready to give her.

Grace drifts and drifts, and eventually her still-sleepy thoughts turn to Vybrant. They’ve been targeting the Pacific Northwest lately, trying to figure out how to make their sales in Washington and Oregon resemble their more impressive Northern California numbers. She hopes they’ll be able to line up enough meetings with buyers at the feminist sex shops up there to justify taking a trip—she’s thinking sweaters and ferry rides and candlelight glowing against misty grey evenings, and she’s also thinking of how nice it would be to completely kill it with those feminist sex shop buyers, get such good placement that there’ll be no choice for those numbers but to improve by thirty percent before the end of the fiscal year. She’s in the middle of daydreaming the setup for a slightly ridiculous ad spread—a clearing in a forest of evergreens, a picnic on a flannel blanket, the plaid pattern suggestive of a Seattle lesbian’s shirt (or a Seattle anyone’s shirt), an open wicker basket full of strawberries and champagne and at least three or four Ménage à Mois, or wait, Washington apples and bottles of craft beer and three or four Ménage à Mois—when a warm hand lands on the center of her back.

“Well, today’s gonna be a good day.” Frankie’s voice comes out gravelly, and she clears her throat as soon as the words are out. She streaks her fingers up and down Grace’s spine. “This all right?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Grace smiles against the pillow, her face turned away from Frankie. Frankie scratches gently at her back, tickles everywhere, then presses harder before the lighter touches can start to itch too much. She repeats the pattern over and over, and when Frankie miraculously continues to not stop, Grace realizes it’s because she isn’t bored by the repetition. She wonders where that thought came from, because as insecure as she might be, she knows that getting to see the body of the person you love is the opposite of boring. Then she remembers a night years ago, coming home from an awful day with a crick in her neck and a pain radiating down her back, bad enough that she made the highly unusual decision to ask for Robert’s touch. He’d massaged her for barely two minutes before he got distracted, sent her on her way with a meaningless little pat on the shoulder. That could have been in 1998 for all she knows, and Robert is the last person she’d like to think about in this moment, but tears spring to her eyes. She takes advantage of the pillow’s proximity and wipes them away. It’s such a simple but profound pleasure, having your back scratched. Until now, she didn’t realize she’d missed this, doesn’t even know when she last _had_ this.

“Honey, don’t swallow it,” Frankie says, and Grace doesn’t know what that means until she realizes she’s been holding her breath. The air comes out in a gust right before her lungs start to burn. She gulps some air back in, and from that point every exhale is a little whimper. “Honey,” Frankie says again. The gentle word is a contrast with Frankie’s fingers, which scratch harder, one strong line down the left side of Grace’s back and then the right, firm enough that Frankie’s short nails dig into the skin. 

_Harder_ , Grace says inside her head. _Mark me. Make me feel this for hours._ But Frankie moves on from the rough touch almost as soon as she starts, because she’s got her arm around Grace now, sneaks her fingertips against the side of Grace’s breast, treats it not harshly but with a pressure that’s feather-light. There’s a little lightning bolt of apprehension as Grace rolls onto her back, but it’s smaller than what she wants, which is to show Frankie, for Frankie to look at her, for Frankie to touch. 

“Jesus, you’re beautiful,” Frankie says. Grace’s nipples are halfway to tight already, and it doesn’t matter if it’s the air or the compliment or Frankie’s eyes on her or the anticipation of being touched here, too. 

But Frankie only looks. She props herself up on one arm, gazes down at Grace with a big smile, then sobers. “Grace,” she whispers. “What were you doing that night on the phone?”

“Your second-to-last night in Santa Fe, you mean.”

“Yes. Will you show me?”

Grace breathes out against a smile. “I didn’t get very far. I was just touching one of my breasts. Through my pajama top, and then beneath it.” 

Frankie looks around. “Where’s your pajama top?”

“On the floor.”

“Oh.” Frankie seems frantic for a moment, then she sits up and removes her blue GIVE PEAS A CHANCE t-shirt, the one with the little peapods marching in a peace protest. Frankie is a layers person. She wears more clothes to bed than many people wear out in the world, wears more clothes out in the world in Southern California than some people up north would wear at the same time of year. But this morning she’s bare under the shirt, and Grace is so distracted by the sight of her—generous breasts, and skin that’s smooth, and skin that’s creased, an in-person loveliness that’s almost surreal after so much time spent in her head—that she hardly registers what Frankie’s doing when she lays the well-worn fabric over Grace’s chest.

Grace reaches out, her arms uncoordinated and desperate to touch. She pulls Frankie close, finally close enough that she can brush her hands up and down Frankie’s impossibly warm back, close enough that they can kiss while their breasts press against each other. Even with the stupid t-shirt between them, it’s heaven.

But eventually Frankie pulls away from the kiss, re-situates herself so she’s lying next to Grace, her head again propped up on her bent arm so she has a good view. “Please show me,” she says. “First through your ‘pajama top,’ then beneath it.” 

Now that they’ve kissed, Grace’s “must touch Frankie” levels have downgraded from 10 out of 10 to a slightly more manageable 9.5, at least for the moment. And Frankie has asked for something deliciously specific, something Grace can give her willingly, if not simply or easily. The t-shirt smells like Frankie, and before she touches anything else, Grace pulls it up so that some of the material is bunched around her face, careful to ensure that it’s still covering her breasts. She breathes in the scent, and for a second she’s homesick even though Frankie is right here. She closes her eyes. “You asked me if I was taking care of myself,” she says softly. “And I missed you so much. I knew I should wait ‘til we were off the phone, but I couldn’t.” She loosens her right hand from its grip on the fabric, lowers it until until her fingers hover over her breast. Her own touch lands, and though she knew it was coming, it startles a shiver out of her. 

“Look at me?” Frankie whispers. It’s a pure request, a question that could have any number of answers. There’s no requirement, no ultimatum. But Grace’s answer is to open her eyes and look up at Frankie, just as she’s been asked.

“You were onto me immediately. How could you tell?”

“I don’t know. You were quiet in this very particular way, and I just knew. I didn’t know exactly what you were doing, but I knew you were up to something. Or maybe I wanted it to be true so badly that my energy made it happen.” 

Grace remembers how short this part of the phone call was, how quickly it ended after things escalated. It wasn’t their last call of the night, far from it, but she had no way of knowing that then. She’s already touched herself through Frankie’s t-shirt for about as long as she spent touching herself that night before she’d given up and gone under her top. “Remember when I asked you where you were?”

“Of course I do.” 

“When I asked you that, I was doing this.” She finds the bottom edge of Frankie’s t-shirt, slides her hand between the fabric and skin. Now it’s Frankie’s turn to whimper, and Grace smiles up at her. This isn’t even her favorite thing, it’s just the thing she’d happened to choose because it didn’t seem as unethical as full-on masturbation you have to keep hidden to save your tragically unavailable friend from having a crisis of conscience. But with Frankie watching her, this activity might get bumped up the list a few notches. 

With the shirt ridden up, Grace’s hand is hidden but her wrist is exposed, and Frankie encircles it with her thumb and finger. There are words approaching, like a still far-off train getting closer and louder, and although Grace has never begged for anything in her life, she knows she’s going to beg Frankie for sex. If not today, then on Saturday night, scared and happy, sobriety convincing her there’s no safety net, no mattress on the bed. She’ll beg for it even when she has it, she’ll go crazy for it, she’ll ask for more and more and more, more than she could ever possibly deserve. That’s Saturday, fine, but this morning: Frankie’s fingers are frozen in place around her wrist, and she’s going to completely fucking fall apart if they don’t do something about that right now. “Please,” Grace moans, and she grabs at Frankie’s fingers with her free hand, shoves them under the shirt, then grabs the shirt and throws it to the ground, where it can commiserate with her pajama top. 

Frankie concentrates on her nipple right away, rubbing it with her fingertips. Grace is a little too sensitive there; it doesn’t hurt, exactly, and she can adjust to the pressure, but—“A little lower,” she hears herself blurt. “Right underneath it?” Immediately, like magic, the uncomfortable pressure is gone and she has what she’s asked for, good enough that she abandons her breast and lets Frankie have it. Frankie’s thumb brushes back and forth beneath her nipple, the touch teasing but not insubstantial, and while breast play in general isn’t her favorite thing in the world, this—this moment, this spot, this thumb—might be. “I want to touch you too,” Grace says, and Frankie flops down against her, eases onto her side so there’s room for Grace’s arm between them. It’s not especially comfortable, but she can reach and it’s perfect. Her brain fires with ideas, like they’re the inventors of the concepts _warm_ and _soft_ and _longing_ and _tense_. 

After a few minutes pass, they calm down, their breath slowing by degrees. The room is brighter now, the day ahead inviting itself in. “I’m not suggesting we have sex right now,” Frankie says carefully, “but can I point out that you’re sober? Right now?”

Grace nods.

“And you’re okay?”

Grace nods again, though she’s less okay now that it’s been mentioned. She _is_ okay, though. If somebody placed a mimosa or a Bloody Mary or, say, a fifth of vodka right beneath her nose, she’d want to drink it. But circumstantially, she’s fine. Her brain doesn’t feel like a little rat, scurrying around making plans to drink—sometimes it does, but not right now. Soon they’ll get up, and go to separate bathrooms, and brush their teeth, and meet downstairs for coffee and breakfast and a day’s work. 

But before any of that, Frankie kisses her. It’s the fifth time they’ve kissed, though she’s already lost track of how many kisses they’ve shared total. The kiss goes sloppy, slips to the side of her mouth, then against her jaw, and Frankie’s lips follow the edge of her neck, the slope of her shoulder. She lingers there, long enough for Grace to figure out how to say “Leave a mark. Tide me over.” The _for Saturday_ is unspoken but understood. 

The mark Frankie bites into her shoulder is a purplish red, though she won’t know that for sure until she looks in the mirror later. It’ll sting in the shower. Her shirt collars will bother it. It’ll make her happy; it already does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, for reading. I appreciate all feedback and hope you're enjoying the story.


	7. Chapter 7 (Coyote)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Grace Hanson is the reason Coyote first learned fashion lady words—“sophisticated,” “chic,” “en vogue.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's been reading this series. Feedback means the world to me, so don't hesitate to let me know what you think!

Intellectually, Coyote knows this random disaster of a Thursday is far from the worst day he’s ever had. He’s got an entire gradient, fuzzy to fuzzier, of memories of much worse days, followed by the indelible sweat-stench of withdrawal, followed by endless recovery, which gets easier but doesn’t exactly lose its fragility. Still: today’s the worst day ever, and it’s all thanks to the trombone section in third period ninth grade band, or more accurately, thanks to the trombone section and an unscheduled fourth period observation by the vice principal, when clean-up was still happening, and a grade book that went missing for three hours because a different ninth grader hid it, and a truck pulling out in front of him on his bike ride home. It’s almost refreshing, this day, and Coyote can’t figure out why until he places it: what he feels is the perverse joy of having your misery caused by people other than yourself.

As soon as he gets home from work, Coyote does what he can to take care of the wanting-to-drink-and-drug part of this worst day: he calls his sponsor and they chat for a while, and when they’re off the phone he fills his tiny house with his current favorite Grizzly Bear song, settles into his favorite chair—in other words, his only chair—and repeats the song over and over and over. 

There are people who can handle a big, populous, possession-filled life. They own dozens of bowls and plates, queen- or king-sized beds, a fleet of chairs. They keep a full-sized house clean, maintain a wide social circle, climb the ladder at work, seem to do it all with less effort than Coyote exerts on his miniaturized version of existence. It’s taken awhile, but he’s okay with that. He likes that this beautiful song is audible from anywhere in his tiny house. He likes that he can see pretty much the entire interior from his spot on the chair. Out of all the life-scales he’s tried on for size, this one fits best.

But there’s still the somewhat troubling question of what to do with the rest of his evening, which seems to promise the exact vastness he tries very hard to avoid. He has zero plans. Some of his colleagues from the school where he’s a permanent sub are headed to a bar for Thirsty Thursday, and most weeks he can handle sitting at the edges of their laughter with a club soda and appetizers for dinner, but not tonight. He’d walk to Mallory’s and play uncle to her kids, but Mitch has them tonight through the end of the weekend, and Brianna is over for some sister time. He’s been texting with his brother at a higher rate than normal all week, starting with Bud’s sanity-seeking dispatches on the way to and from Santa Fe, but the latest word from him was a photo of an orange Home Depot shopping cart, captioned “Nesting!” and immediately followed by some hastily-typed excitement about putting together his unborn child’s very first bookshelf. Coyote just hopes they remember to procure a crib and changing table, too, and while he’s excited about becoming an uncle to his own brother’s kid, he’s not in the mood to be micro-managed while unpackaging particle board and eighteen different types of screws. He has friends—of course he has friends, friends from the program, and Thirsty Thursday-hating friends from work, and even a few friends from high school who still live in the area—but on this bad day, no particular name rises to the surface. 

He has to come up with something quick, because before too long it won’t matter that “Mourning Sound” isn’t meant to be a wallowing song, that it has a driving beat, enough good poetry to earn its wailing parts. Too bad he’s a terrible decision-maker. He shares this attribute with his mother, who likes to drive the point home: _Coyote Bergstein, I may not have birthed you from my womb, but you certainly inherited my abysmal decision-making skills._

His mom has said some variation of this on many occasions, like the time last year when it was just the two of them at the movie theater during Oscar season, so overwhelmed by the options that they ended up re-conceptualizing “going to the movies” as a movie-less hangout session in a neon popcorn lounge. She said it in the car on the way to a treatment center, Sol behind the wheel begging her under his breath to stop talking, Coyote in the backseat watching the blurred world pass through the window, hands shaking, jaw clenched so he wouldn’t cry. She said it through tears of laughter just a few months ago, when he’d borrowed some kitchen stuff from Mal—okay, borrowed Mal’s kitchen—and invited his mom and Grace over for dinner. Everything went a little wrong. With no Plan B option on hand because Plan A seemed so brilliant, he’d attempted to spiralize baked potatoes. “Grace, this is worse than the time you forced us to make zoodles! The spiralized food craze has claimed another victim,” Frankie said. “I thought your mom would enjoy using a spiralizer,” Grace told Coyote later that night, in a tone he now remembers as conciliatory. “But it just made her angry.” 

His mother, always the perfect combination of sympathetic and willing to laugh at his expense. And actually, his mother is an option because she’s home, having semi-unexpectedly reversed what she admitted on Monday was one of the worst of her bad decisions. She’d stopped by that evening, his house one of the first stops on her homecoming rounds, but he hasn’t seen her since. He sends a series of text messages her way: 

_Had to borrow latex gloves from the school custodian today_

_2 different bodily fluids trapped in a rental trombone_

_In addition to the regular saliva, that is_

_Haha_

_Worst day ever_

_Meet at co-op for dinner?_

_Sorry for gross texts right b4 dinner invite_

_Dinner tonite, I mean_

_If you’re free_

_No worries either way_

She’s free. When he walks into the hot bar area, she’s already there, waiting at an empty table. Grace is with her, which shouldn’t surprise him but does. Or maybe what he feels isn’t surprise at her presence but the strangeness of time passing, the way big changes happen against the same backdrop you’ve stood in front of forever. When they were kids, Coyote and Bud ate here with their parents a couple times a month, on those nights nobody wanted to cook. Although he’s a grown adult, seeing Frankie here with someone new gives him the unmistakable sensation of watching a stepparent fill the role your parent used to fill. A bratty little part of him wonders how well Grace is going to do.

Grace is wearing a button-down shirt covered in parrots. Out of the many bird outfits she owns, this is the loudest Coyote has seen. On anybody else, it would look like a Hawaiian shirt, but on her—you wouldn’t mistake a parrot for a sophisticated bird, but Grace gets them close. 

Grace Hanson is the reason Coyote first learned fashion lady words—“sophisticated,” “chic,” “en vogue.” He learned them as a kid, listening to his mom talk about Grace. Coyote used to hang around his parents when they got ready for a rare night out, and it’s possible that more than one night has run together, bled into a single memory, but Coyote thinks he remembers a specific occasion when he left Bud in the living room chattering away at Tiffany, the paralegal intern who sat for them sometimes. Bud was probably explaining the entire plot of the Animorphs series, which Coyote had already read and discussed with his brother at length, and Coyote lingered in the hallway outside the master bedroom, preemptively missing his parents even though he was almost old enough to not need a babysitter at all. “Why do I even bother?” Frankie had groaned, half at the full-length mirror near the door and half at Sol, still considering an outfit change even though the babysitter had already arrived and they were running late for dinner with the Hansons. “Grace Hanson’s going to out-chic me no matter what I wear.” His dad’s response, probably spoken from around a toothbrush, is muffled and obscured by time. Did he tell Frankie she was prettier than Grace? Did he say “You look great to me?” Did he laugh off her concern? Did he say something that, in hindsight, would sound kind of gay?

“Hey, Mom,” Coyote says. “Hey, Grace. Nice shirt.”

“Thanks. Frankie got it for me yesterday,” she says, which explains a lot. “She was supposed to be out buying packing tape for Vybrant, but she came home with this.” 

“And tape, eventually,” says Frankie. “Life happens.” She stands up, stretches out an arm to hoist up Grace, and Grace takes it, doesn’t let go until it’s time to pick out a plate. 

Once they’ve selected food, weighed and paid for their plates, and are back at the table, Coyote notices everyone has chosen to drink tea. He’s mostly glad his family doesn’t generally feel the need to censor their consumption around him, but he can admit to himself that it’s nice to not be a foot-and-a-half away from an open container of alcohol right now. And surprising. Their table is very near a floor-to-ceiling refrigerator full of booze—it’s practically an entire wall of chilled bottles of organic wine, craft beer, and cider. The café sells it by the glass, too. If Grace is half the addict he is—and maybe there’s no math for addiction, maybe there shouldn’t be, but if there was and he had to place her somewhere, half is where he thinks she’d be—the proximity is driving her crazy. It’s been so long for him that the presence of those bottles feels almost theoretical, but for her, it’s a real, active wall of possibilities. 

Though he’s been eating instead of talking—they all have—he feels the distinct need for a subject change. “So, you wanna hear about the trombone that made my life a living hell today?” He knows the topic’s not mealtime-appropriate, but there’s a zingy sort of nervous energy in the silence at the table, and the trombone is the first thing he can think of that would replace it.

“You know, I actually do,” Grace says, which is not, in a million years, the response Coyote expected. “Your mom showed me your texts, which piqued my curiosity. But I read the buffet label wrong, and this tofu enchilada bake and I are hanging on by a thread, so I need about ten minutes before I hear anything gross.” 

“Oh, honey, you don’t like it!” Frankie exclaims. “Want me to get you something else?”

“No, this is fine. Let’s just”—Grace makes a rolling motion with her chin—“go on.”

Frankie exhales. “Right.” She turns from Grace to face Coyote directly. “Sweetheart,” she says. Before she continues, she puts her arm around Grace’s shoulder. “I know you’re having a bad day, and hopefully this won’t make it worse, but there’s something we need to talk to you about.”

 _Here it comes_ , Coyote thinks, though he didn’t know what it was going to be until this moment. Or maybe he knew a few moments back, his brain giving him _stepparent_ when that wasn’t the word he meant to think at all. Or maybe he knew it on Sunday, after reading a text Bud sent from a rest area outside Phoenix: _So! Many! Feelings! They’re hugging it out in a long line at the Quik Trip. This has not felt like a quick trip._ “Okay, Mom,” Coyote says. “Shoot.” 

“Jacob and I broke it off for a lot of reasons. I came home for a lot of reasons. I missed everyone so much. I missed _you_ so much. But the thing that took me from being homesick to actually moving back home—that was Grace.” Coyote’s been looking directly at his mother, with the sort of eye contact the Bergstein family considers respectful and communicative, but when she says this, he breaks it, glances at Grace to see what he can understand about her now. She’s looking down at her plate, making respectful eye contact with her half-eaten enchilada bake. Her bangs have fallen over her eyes, but Coyote can tell that she’s smiling. “We have a lot to figure out.” This makes Grace look up, but instead of turning to Frankie she watches Coyote. “But I love her too much to be anywhere else.”

“ _Love_ love, you mean,” Coyote says. It can’t hurt to be absolutely sure.

Both Grace and Frankie nod, tentative not in meaning but in manner. “Does it feel like this came out of nowhere?” Frankie asks.

Coyote breathes out a big puff of air. “Not exactly,” he says carefully. How to convey knowing without knowing? Something incredible but not shocking, something that’s not quite inevitable but—maybe in a better world?—seems like it should be. “Yes and no. Not nowhere.”

“Oh, good,” Grace says. It looks like a struggle to speak. Some of the parrots on her shirt are pink, and her face has picked up their color. 

“Um,” Coyote says. “Who else knows?”

“Mallory does,” says Frankie. “Half of Bud, maybe?”

“Three-quarters,” says Grace. 

“All of Bud,” says Coyote. “At least, I’m pretty sure. Brianna? And what about Dad and Robert? Oh my God, Dad and Robert.”

Frankie sighs. “You’re telling me. Give us a few more days, and then it’s safe to tell the world.” 

“Hey.” Coyote picks up his mug of tea, suspends it midair. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Frankie says, a little too loud. 

They toast, and when they’ve set their mugs down, Grace tilts her head at him. “So, we know ninth graders are disgusting, and we know your day was awful, and that a trombone was involved.” She smiles, wary because there were bodily fluids trapped in a trombone, and she’s about to hear about it, and happy because his mom is awesome. Frankie smiles too, the same expression on a different face. “I guess you should tell us the rest.”


	8. Chapter 8 (Frankie)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They’d stayed up very late because, after years of conversation, they have bodies now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear what you think, so please consider leaving a comment. Thank you so much for reading--it means a lot to me.

When Grace’s phone rings, jingling and vibrating atop the stack of books on her nightstand, Frankie’s first thought is that it’s too early for anything bad to happen, too early to be clothed and competent. Whatever it is needs to wait for a more fair time of day. A couple days ago, she asked Grace why she keeps her ringer on all night, muting social media notifications but leaving herself open to everything else, and Grace said, “Emergencies don’t wait for core business hours.” 

She has a point, and Frankie knows she’ll leave her own phone on all night as soon as Allison hits the third trimester. But it’s _early_ , and Frankie’s eyes are still glued shut. She feels the bed shift as Grace sits up and leans over to check the phone screen. Frankie stays where she is: lying on her stomach, tangled in the covers with just enough skin exposed to feel the chill in the room as a delicious counterpoint to the warmth in the bed. Cool air on her back is a novelty; she’s used to a cocoon of clothes, but all week she’s slept in less and less. They slept without shirts on last night, and she wants Grace to reject the phone call and lie back down and touch her awake. Wants Grace’s arm planted against her back like it was last night, breasts pressed into her side. But Grace clears her throat. “Hello?”

It’s Sol on the other end. Frankie can’t hear well enough to pick out individual words, but, even muffled and tinny, the voice is unmistakably his. Why would Sol call Grace if it weren’t for bad news about Robert? Another heart attack? Some “health event” they couldn’t have anticipated? _Stay calm_ , she thinks uselessly. She reaches for Grace, makes contact with her thigh, leaves her hand there for leverage as she scoots closer. 

“She seems okay to me,” Grace says, and her words don’t make sense, don’t seem to be about Robert at all. “I’m looking right at her.” Her hand lands in Frankie’s hair. “Yes, we’re up,” she lies. Frankie opens her eyes, smiles up at her. “We’re fine. Oh. Oh, gosh.” She goes quiet as Sol talks, takes her hand away and folds her arm across her chest so her breasts are covered, and now Frankie’s annoyed she didn’t open her eyes sooner. “Well,” she finally says, “I don’t think that would—no, of course, I understand the symbolism, I just. She’s fine. I promise. She’s here. No, busy at the moment, I’ll tell her she ought to call.”

Frankie hasn’t seen Sol since she’s been back. Robert, either. She’ll see them before long, but so far, she hasn’t felt the need. 

“No,” Grace says. “No, no, it’s all right. Thank you. You have a good day too. Bye now.” She ends the call. Frankie scrambles up, sits next to her with her back against the headboard. There are tears in Grace’s eyes, and she’s staring at the phone like it has more to tell her. 

“What was that all about?”

“Nothing.”

“You got bad news about...me?” 

“No, it was nothing.”

“Grace.”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes! I obviously want to know!”

She sighs. “Sol had a dream about you. A bad dream. So he called to make sure you were, um, okay.”

“Alive, you mean? Because in the dream I was dead?”

Grace nods, turning her head toward Frankie. The tears in her eyes threaten to spill over, and Frankie pulls her close, one hand against her back, the other on the arm still crossing her chest. “Sol believes in radical honesty,” Frankie says. 

“That doesn’t seem right.”

“It takes a lot of nerve, I know.” 

“Well, his radical honesty about scared me to death. I figured Robert had had another heart attack, but I wasn’t even relieved when it wasn’t true, because he immediately launched into his subconscious’ rendition of _your_ death. God, how are men so fragile?” She tucks her head into the curve of Frankie’s shoulder, glances up with a pout before snuggling back in. “It’s our _first week_. I’m not thinking about death this week.” 

Frankie kisses the top of Grace’s head. It would be hard to speak around the lump in her throat, and she’s glad she can communicate in other ways now. She presses her thumb into Grace’s shoulder blade, drifts lower and spends awhile on strong muscles and rippled indentations of bone. Warm life. “He could have waited until a decent hour to call,” she says when she can talk again. “Or figured out I was alive some other way.”

“Sweetheart, look at how bright the room is. It’s almost nine, and we’re the ones who work, not Sol. Remember last night? I said I wasn’t setting an alarm because we were up so late.” 

“I remember. I just hadn’t realized how long we slept.” 

They’d stayed up very late because, after years of conversation, they have bodies now. They’d already had them, in a sense—a hug, a supporting arm, a high five, a forehead kiss. But now Grace might say “Take off your shirt?” in a tone that could change the course of an hour, or an entire night, or Frankie might stop them on the short trip from the kitchen to the dining room because kissing seems like a better idea than walking. After their dinner with Coyote the night before, they drove home, had a glass of wine each while sharing a joint on the patio, turned on the TV but paid attention only to each other. A very late night. 

“Hey,” Frankie says. “Are you gonna tell me how I died?”

“No!” Grace sounds scandalized. “Well, I suppose it’s your choice,” she amends. “But I don’t want to tell you, and I won’t. Not unless you think about it and decide you truly want to know.” 

Frankie shrugs. What’s more radical—an impulse, or an intention? “I’ll think about it. Oh, and he wants me to call him? I’ll call him all right.”

\--

When Frankie has showered and dressed, she knows that finding Grace and eating breakfast are her only buffers between this moment and the rest of her morning, a morning to be spent packaging vibrators for shipment. They each spend at least two hours on packaging every weekday, no matter how many more interesting tasks are on their plates. Frankie’s come around to it; mailing out literally dozens of vibrators every business day is the 2017 equivalent of sexually liberating America street by street. Unfortunately, in a depressing concession to a less idyllic reality, Grace has to wear her wrist brace the whole time. When Frankie pointed out how ironic it was that she was aggravating her arthritis packaging arthritis-friendly vibrators, Grace had coolly replied, “I know, and just think how much worse it was when you were gone,” and that shut her right up. In just a few days, Frankie’s taping speed and labeling precision have improved a lot; sometimes she takes one of Grace’s hours, too. 

Frankie has some tricks for keeping the most tedious part of their job fun. She reads amusing names and addresses aloud: “Mary lives in Maryville! How adorable!” She speculates about their customers’ sex lives, and tries to get Grace to join her: “Isaac Yard. A guy, a pseudonym, or both. He’s definitely a bottom. He’s buying this for partner sex, but he may not have looked at the pictures online. Or read the description. Right, Grace? Right, Grace?” She speaks affirmations into the universe as she places the final label on each box: “Margaret Hampton, you get yourself some good vibrations!” “Irene Smith, enjoy that ménage à toi.”

For the moment, though, it’s time for Grace and breakfast, a combination that’s gotten her out of bed for years. Somehow, it still works as an incentive, even now that they share a bed. 

When she makes it to the kitchen, Grace is opening and closing cabinet doors, opening and closing the refrigerator, rejecting cereal boxes and yogurt and coffee beans and bacon. “I want a drink,” she fumes, “and I can’t have one, and it isn’t even the time I normally want one.” 

_Because Sol upset you_ , Frankie thinks. “It’s Friday,” she points out. “By which I mean ‘not Saturday.’” She isn’t sure if that’s helpful. She’s made her needs clear—is it better to be permissive the rest of the time? Neutral and nonchalant? None of the above? 

“I know, but I can’t have one yet,” says Grace. “The internet told me to taper, so I’m tapering. Ever since we talked on Tuesday night.” There’s a light in her eyes, painfully bright, an anger and desire Frankie knows she doesn’t want. Not right now.

“I see,” Frankie says. She supposes she’s noticed this happening, but she hadn’t realized there was research involved. “Does the internet know enough for you to be using it like that?” _Are you safe? Am I asking too much?_

“Yes, Frankie.” Grace rolls her eyes. “It’s not as if I went straight to Infowars.” She shuts the fridge, stands with her back to it.

Frankie chuckles. “Like Puss Face’s husband?” She’s heard stories from Grace. The guy was born to get taken in by conspiracy theories. When they were still friends, Grace got a lot of email forwards.

“Right, I’m much better at the internet than Puss Face’s husband. Janet’s husband. Anyway, tapering’s not rocket science. You drink less over time so it’s not a shock to the system.” She looks at the floor. “I’m actually very lucky. It feels a lot worse for some people. It, um. It hasn’t been that bad so far.”

“That’s good,” Frankie says. “I’m proud of you.”

Grace shrugs and says nothing.

“Grace. I know the ocean is yet another thing you can’t drink.” This earns Frankie a smile. “But it’s really beautiful and loud and distracting. Why don’t you go look at it? I’ll make you breakfast.” There’s so much she can’t do for Grace. So much she can’t share or take on or even empathize with, at least not fully. But she can give her the gift of not having to decide what to make for breakfast this morning, that little foothold to take her to the next hard, ordinary thing.

When Grace is gone, Frankie immediately turns to the internet for advice. Twitter is already open on her laptop, and she accidentally tweets “how to cook bacon,” deletes the tweet, then tweets it again for the sake of transparency before heading to Google, her intended destination. As far as Google searches go, this one seems relatively unnecessary, except this bacon might require different treatment than the tempeh stuff and she wants to make absolutely sure.

As soon as she discovers the difference, it seems obvious: real bacon provides its own grease. She rummages in the drawer where Grace is allowed to keep meat now that she’s back in the house, and her stomach churns as she pulls two raw slices from the package, lays them carefully on a still-cool skillet. She hasn’t touched dead animal flesh in over forty years, at least not consciously. And pig? Maybe never. Only a minute or two after she turns on the burner, the kitchen fills with a mouthwatering smell, and then her olfactory sense is at war with the grease on her fingertips, the memory of how the bacon felt stringy yet solid and substantial as she pulled Grace’s slices away from the others. 

She stays close to the range, turning the strips with a spatula, and when they seem almost ready, she tilts the pan so some of the grease—just a little, just enough—pools at the side. She cracks an egg into that side of the pan, and it cooks quickly, the white edges turning into brown lace. Just as the cooking comes to an end, she remembers there needs to be coffee. 

When Grace comes back, there are two place settings on the island. Two mugs of coffee, Grace’s bacon and egg, granola for Frankie, both because she’s hungry and because she doesn’t want to make Grace uncomfortable by just watching her eat.

“Thank you,” Grace says. “You don’t even believe in bacon.” 

“Well, sure. I mean, I was just the messenger, just a conduit for your breakfast. ”

They eat quietly for awhile, and then Grace breaks the silence. “I wish I could want something a normal amount,” she says. “I don’t even know what that’s like.”

“Mm.”

“I have no appetite, or I’m ravenous. Not just in the food sense—in everything.”

“I like you,” says Frankie. It’s almost as important as being loved. Grace knows she’s loved, but love can’t be helped. Does she believe Frankie likes her, too? 

Grace smiles wryly. “You too.” 

“I’m not sure if anybody’s talented enough to have a truly normal appetite. I mean, by definition, doesn’t ‘want’ mean you have the wrong amount, or think you do?”

“Maybe,” Grace says. “But I wasn’t always this out of whack. Retirement was pretty bad for me. The divorce was pretty bad for me—I mean, it was great for me, you know that, but it messed me up, too. And...I don’t know how much you could see, but I struggled a lot before Say Grace, when the kids were still little.”

“I wish I’d been there. You know, _really_ there.”

“Yeah.” Grace nods. “We’d always say, every weekend, that we were going to spend time together as a family. But by midday Sunday, or even earlier, Robert would have wandered back to the office, and I’d take care of the kids, and try to enjoy it, but I’d have to take breaks.” 

“That’s fair.” 

“The girls were safe,” she says quickly. “They were always safe. But, but sometimes I’d lock myself in the bathroom and sneak drinks, just to soften things a little. One afternoon Brianna was invited to Jenny Olson’s house, and the Olsons’ car was in the shop. I couldn’t drive her. I made up some lame excuse, and she had to stay home. She was so angry, and I know she could tell there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t just being the mean mom.” 

“Oh, honey. That was what, thirty years ago? You remember every little detail.”

“I know. I think about it every time Brianna and I argue.” 

“We should’ve been making out in that bathroom,” Frankie says. “We should’ve been having our own fun.” 

“But we weren’t.” She sighs, the sound resolute. “There’s no going back now.”

“When are you gonna talk to Brianna?”

“I’m not sure,” Grace says. “Soon.”

“I mean, Mal did say she’d take care of her, but you’ll have to at least do some follow-up. At minimum.” 

“Oh, no, she meant she’ll do damage control after I tell her. She wouldn’t—Mallory wouldn’t come out for me. She wouldn’t think that was a favor, would she?”

“I don’t know,” says Frankie. “I don’t think we heard things the same way.”

“Oh, God,” Grace says thickly. “Oh God oh God. I need to call Brianna.”

“She’s at work. Call her later. For now, we should be at work.” It’s like she’s been replaced with an automaton—such practicality, such a work ethic. “I might skip out around four-ish, though, if Sol’s home. I want to give him a piece of my mind. If I could take your car?”

“Daylight driving only,” Grace says. “And no highways.” Come home safe, she means. 

—

Sol answers the door with an empty brandy snifter and a white flour sack towel in his hand. “Welcome back,” he says, and tries for a hug with his free arm. When they’re untangled from that, he leads Frankie back to the kitchen, where she perches on a stool at the counter and he continues to dry glassware too delicate for the dishwasher. 

“Can I get you anything?” he asks. He’s home alone. If Robert were here, he’d have asked this question already, probably within ten seconds of her arrival at the door.

“Nah, thanks though.” There’s a lot of glassware: is Sol behind on chores, or did they have a party last night? “Sol.”

“Yeah?”

“If you ever need a subtle, relaxed way to find out if I’m alive? Shoot me a text. ‘Hey, Frankie, found a sale on bulk loose leaf tea.’ Or ‘Hey, Frankie, guess you like La Jolla better than Santa Fe after all?’ Or even, if you really must, ‘Hey, Frankie, are you alive?’ And then I’ll write back: ‘Great, where?’ or ‘I guess I do’ or ‘I sure am.’”

Sol puts down the towel and turns to face her. He’s mid-cringe, and she feels a clench of annoyance at his face, which can’t do anything halfway. She’s barely admonished him, and already he looks like a Mr. Potato Head who’s put on all his anxious accessories at once. “You’re mad I called Grace.”

“Damn right I am. You scared her!” 

“I didn’t mean to,” Sol says. “Oh, jeez, I did scare her, didn’t I.”

Frankie nods. “She wouldn’t tell me how I died. She said I should think carefully about whether I’d want to be able to imagine it, that she’d tell me only if I thought it through and still wanted to know.”

“Did you—” 

“I explained about radical honesty. I think she likes regular honesty better.”

“Well, it was a very, _very_ unlikely, very ridiculous way to die. Which I tried to point out to Grace.”

“Tell me,” Frankie says. “I thought about it.”

“You went down Niagara Falls in a barrel. You didn’t make it.”

A tight space, a great height, an uncontrolled plunge. Technically, the nightmare is Sol’s, but the fears are Grace’s. “Okay, it’s—it’s actually kind of hilarious that you dreamed that. But you didn’t call because it was hilarious. You called because you thought I might be dead for real. And you scared my sweet little claustrophobic—” _girlfriend_. She’s about to say _girlfriend_. But she and Grace haven’t figured out their plan for Robert and Sol yet. They decided about their children easily: fuck up the kids’ realities whenever the time is right, get the word out, keep living living living. It’s unfortunate but not surprising that the timing with Brianna has gone a little haywire, though Frankie’s sure that part will sort out eventually. Robert and Sol will require a different kind of work, even if Grace is convinced Robert won’t be surprised. “You scared my sweet little claustrophobic business associate.”

“I’m sorry,” Sol says, but he doesn’t really sound sorry. At worst, he sounds inconvenienced by this interaction. At best, he sounds like he wishes Frankie hadn’t had to inconvenience herself. “Make her a stiff drink and do a nice job with the Vybrant labels and she’ll be fine. I owe ya.” 

That’s everyone’s solution to Grace, isn’t it. Try not to mess up, and provide alcohol to patch up the gap between your effort and her standards. “You know, she doesn’t have some solvable formula,” she says.

“You were never very good at math.”

“And thank God,” she says, and she can’t be bothered to feel guilty about the cryptic response. She realizes she isn’t close enough to Sol to say anything she wants to say. She’d like to defend her math skills, remind him that as a businesswoman, she’s used more math within the past year than the previous forty combined, especially if you count sitting next to Grace while she does math. She’d like to point out memories of times Grace has turned down a drink on first offer, point out that nobody in their family fucking listens, and she’s not strong enough to refuse the second offer. And then she’d like to clarify that it’s not that Grace isn’t strong, because she is, she’s extraordinarily strong. She has a problem with alcohol, not with strength. She’d like to ask Sol if he thinks the internet is reputable enough for Grace to take its tapering advice, because she’s a little worried that it isn’t.

But Sol knows less about the internet than she does. He knows less about Grace. And his boundaries are so bad, he makes Frankie seem primly self-contained. Until she and Grace have talked more, Sol doesn’t deserve to know that Grace and alcohol are “It’s Complicated.” She thinks _2007 called and wants its joke back_ , and even that’s something Sol wouldn’t understand. He doesn’t deserve to know that she and Grace are in love. It’s theirs, their knowledge to treasure, to tend and keep safe. Sol will be the last to know.

Frankie dismounts the bar stool with a huff. “I’ve gotta get home. Next time I’m trapped in a barrel on the Canadian border, send me a text.” 

“Noted,” Sol says. He dries his hands and hangs the towel on the handle of the fridge. “Hey,” he says when Frankie’s almost left the room. “I hope you and your business associate are happy together. Really.”

Her heart. Effervescence: fear, light. “That’s the plan,” she says, and then she jets.


	9. Chapter 9 (Brianna)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Grace is coming over for brunch, but Brianna has already eaten breakfast._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: This chapter, like several preceding chapters, contains references to alcohol use and abuse, as well as disordered eating. Everyone in this story is very decidedly safe, but please take care when deciding to read.
> 
> For all readers, thank you so much for coming along for this ride. Only one chapter to go! I'd love to hear what you think.

When the knock on the door comes, brief but decisive, Brianna’s crouched on the floor in front of her bar cart, plucking a couple bottles to display on the kitchen counter alongside the orange juice and olives and celery sticks and the pitcher of her homemade Bloody Mary mix. “Just a sec!” she shouts in the direction of the door.

Grace is coming over for brunch, but Brianna has already eaten breakfast. She’s stashed a hastily-prepared fruit salad in the fridge in case her mom wants something—and Grace probably will want a portion plated for show, something to pick at over the course of their conversation. The salad is nothing more than sliced bananas and grapes and the seasonless strawberries that always seem to be available at the grocery store. The squeeze of lemon juice to prolong freshness is as close to Martha Stewart as Brianna will get for a woman who doesn’t even like to eat. 

Brianna was raised to do things properly, to make an effort no matter the occasion. Neither of her parents have always had money, and throughout Brianna’s life, her mother has been especially insistent that you can manage simple, tasteful, nice things on any budget. When Mallory and Brianna were new college grads, living paycheck to paycheck in a dingy apartment they shared for six months before Mallory moved in with Mitch, their friends always commented on their “grown-up” table settings and “fancy” dinner parties. You can achieve wonders with scrambled eggs if you top them with fresh-cut herbs grown in pots on the window sill. Homemade bread is cheaper than store-bought. You can impress even the less-than-easy-to-impress with a table runner managed by sewing looping patterns into floral bed sheets from Goodwill. These days, Brianna is a person with more than enough. She doesn’t have to consider thrift when she’s at the grocery store. She can easily afford to do things properly—a step beyond properly, even. She doesn’t have to get creative unless she wants to.

But ever since Barry left, ever since her half-successful trip to Baltimore, ever since diving into limbo with him and having to talk about her emotions on a regular basis on the goddamn telephone, she’s been trying to be better about doing things the true way instead of the “right” way. Her mom wants to be hungry, so why bother with a big spread? Brianna doesn’t want to be hungry, so she’s eaten. Simple. Surely even Grace can admit this approach is better than—what? Looking at a croissant? Feeling obligated to comment on the prettiness of a pastry because she has no idea how it tastes? 

And, today of all days, it’ll be easier for both of them if they can drink their brunch. She reminds herself that it’s only Saturday morning; even if this is a disaster, she’ll have a day and a half left to salvage her weekend. She has invited this. When it became obvious that Grace wasn’t going to reach out to her with the same revelation she’d shared with Mallory, she’d texted her mom and more or less demanded things come to a head: _Mallory shared some interesting news. Come to breakfast tomorrow so we can actually talk? Please._

Brianna rushes to set the bottles down in their intended spot, then lets her mother in. Grace is wearing jeans and a mustard yellow sweater, startling not only in its brightness but because of the number of times Brianna has heard Grace warn her about this very color. _We can’t pull off goldenrod or mustard or marigold, Brianna, and you can forget about canary._ Grace has a couple shirts the color of margarine, more or less, but this is a major departure from that. She looks good, Brianna thinks. There’s no sign of a sickly pallor, and she isn’t washed out at all. 

She knows from experience that Grace doesn’t want her purse taken—she’ll hand it over to be polite, but it won’t take long before she’ll wish she could easily reach her phone or mints or planner. It’s strange how often her mother has cause to use a planner during gatherings, though Brianna supposes there’s a reason she and Frankie manage to arrive in the right place at the right time so often. So, instead of offering to take anything from her, Brianna leads Grace straight to the kitchen. 

“What can I get you? Mimosa? Screwdriver? Bloody Mary?” Brianna grins. “Martini? A martini could be brunch-y.” She hopes Grace chooses a Bloody, because she’s really perfected the mix this time. It’s peppery and acidic, neither too thick nor too thin, with a punch of horseradish in every swallow. These are the qualities one looks for in a Bloody Mary—on this, at least, Brianna and her mother agree.

“I can’t,” Grace says, visibly swallowing as soon as the words are out. “I mean, no thanks.” She stands in the middle of the room, staring at the bottles on the counter. 

“Okay?” Brianna can’t keep the surprise out of her voice, but the resolute flatness in her mother’s tone prevents her from asking again. She’s heard her mother turn down a drink with a perfunctory _I couldn’t possibly_ that’s easily dashed away. This is different, delicate but hard, as brittle as a reed. She gets the sense that something bad might happen if she offers again. “Sure, that’s fine.” 

“Don’t let me stop you, honey,” Grace says, glancing at the bottles again. She sets her purse down on the kitchen counter, braces against the counter to perch on a stool, and as she gets herself settled Brianna makes quick work of returning the booze to the bar cart, the mixers to the fridge. “What are you making for brunch? Can I help?”

“Parfaits,” Brianna says, the lie so immediate it scares her a little. It’s a lie that’s thankfully backed up by about half a tub of lowfat vanilla yogurt, untouched for a week or so but probably still fine. She turns to the fridge so her mother can’t peer into her face, pulls out the yogurt and fruit salad. Is there any granola in the pantry? Anything that would make this good?

There isn’t. There’s nothing beyond the basics available to sustain the made-up brunch. She could admit her lie and offer eggs and toast, or she could see this through, and while the former would be more appealing to eat—and is, in fact, what Brianna ate at nine o’clock this morning—the latter is her only real option. She has to stir the carton of yogurt vigorously to hide the way the ingredients have separated. Despite the lemon juice, the banana slices have started to turn brown. But they make parfaits, taking turns spooning the yogurt and fruit into pint glasses in silence. Even with so much to say, even during what has surely been a momentous week in her mother’s life, it’s easy for them to stay quiet when it’s just the two of them together. With a pang, Brianna wishes for Mallory and her easy chatter, a skill earned thanks to years as a comfortable buffer between two sharp points. Then again, Mallory is half the reason they’re here. 

“Mind if I make some coffee?” Grace asks when the parfaits are nearly made.

“Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry,” Brianna says. She preps the French press herself, working in continued silence except for the splash of water filling the electric kettle, the hiss as it heats, the gurgling as it starts to boil. She’d already ground some coffee beans before Grace arrived, then promptly forgot about them, so it’s not long before the coffee’s brewing. 

Brianna sits at the counter next to Grace and takes a bite of her gross parfait. There’s too much lemon juice. The tart flavor makes her angry; the quiet makes her angry. Grace sits up straighter as she eats, seeming to have no reaction at all to the flavor of the meal, and her excellent posture makes Brianna angry, too. Good posture is her mother’s gospel, and while it’s true that it’s slimming, and it’s true that your muscles and bones feel better when you sit up straight, it’s absolutely infuriating. 

“So,” Brianna says. “Is it gonna drive you crazy when you get called a lesbian?”

Grace almost chokes on a strawberry, but she recovers fast. “No,” she says, turning to look at Brianna. She shrugs, but there’s nothing uncertain in her voice, nor in the plain word she’s chosen. Her gaze returns to her breakfast. She takes another bite, chews in the same careful way that she sits and stands and walks and does everything. She inhales a sharp breath before she speaks again. “You know how much I prefer it when things make sense, when there’s a logical solution to a problem. ‘Lesbian’ makes way more sense than anything else I ever told myself.”

“Why’d you tell Mal before you told me?”

The muscles in Grace’s neck clench. “That’s all you have to say?”

 _Of course not._ “Well, I’m curious. If Mallory hadn’t said anything—”

Grace sighs. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I misunderstood her. I really, truly didn’t know she was going to talk to you before I did. I’m going to have to talk to her about that.”

Brianna waits.

“Mallory walked in on us,” Grace says. “We were just talking,” she adds quickly. “Mostly.” She slides the parfait glass along the counter, passing it from her left hand to her right and back again. Her pale pink nail polish catches the light, and Brianna notices that her nails are shorter than she’s ever seen them. Jesus Christ. The one-two punch of having way too much and way too little information about her mother continues. Relentlessly. “I hadn’t decided how I was going to tell you yet. Either of you. I hadn’t planned any of it. Do you get that? I didn’t think this was actually going to happen.”

“But you wanted it to happen.”

“Yeah, I did,” Grace says. “I know it probably doesn’t make sense to you.”

“It doesn’t not make sense.”

A half smile. Another glance at the most interesting yogurt in the world. “One time I asked your dad if we could get a cat,” Grace says. “It must have been forty years ago.”

 _So you’ve always liked pussy!_ , Brianna manages not to say. If this conversation was with anyone but her mother—literally anyone—she wouldn’t have managed such restraint. “Okay,” Brianna says.

“Did you hear me, though?”

“You asked Dad if you could get one. Like, you had to get his permission.” 

Grace nods. “Your dad said ‘no.’ I’m sure that needn’t have been the final word. I could have pressed the issue, and maybe I’d have gotten my way. But you know what he said? He said I wouldn’t like having cat hair on my pretty clothes.”

Brianna snickers. “He probably didn’t want cat hair on his.”

“Exactly. Not to mention he’s a dog person. But when he said that, I didn’t ask myself what was really going on. I didn’t point out that God made lint rollers. I didn’t explain why I wanted one, or point out that I’d be doing all the laundry anyway. I just went along with it and we never got a cat.”

“Maybe you and Frankie could get one.” That would be pretty cute, though it would complicate her sweet dog-sitting set-up.

Grace shrugs, and for a moment she’s far away. “Maybe,” she says, “but the reason I’m telling you this...I don’t—I know plenty of people are way ahead of me on this stuff. Women who left their husbands, or never got husbands in the first place. People with enough sense of themselves to not let someone else make up the reasons why they shouldn’t have what they want. But—” She glances at the ceiling, the Hanson family signal for trying not to cry. “—but for whatever reason, I didn’t get it until I started living with Frankie. Until Vybrant. And even then…” She trails off, seems to think better of continuing down that path. “I just—I really want you of all people to know that if I hadn’t been so dead, if I’d known sooner, _really_ known, I’d have done something about it.” She swipes at tears with the back of her wrist. “Maybe you and Mal would’ve been bullied at school. I would have hated that, but even that would’ve been better than all the lies I was telling you without even realizing it.”

“Oh, Mommy.” _So dead_. She was _dead_. The whole time she was making Brianna’s teenage years a screaming nightmare, and Brianna was paying her back tenfold? A dead woman. Her mother. 

“It would have been better, wouldn’t it?”

“Happier,” Brianna says. “Especially for you.” This isn’t a lie. “We were fine. You know? But I wish—I wish you had had that. I mean, had what you really wanted.” _Instead of us_ , Brianna’s brain chirps, even though Grace has only gotten as far ( _out loud_ ) as imagining a scenario in which she dates a woman ( _nineties Frankie, early aughts Frankie, oh God_ ) and Brianna and Mallory get teased for it. Still. Brianna likes her life, but she can see lots of alternatives that might have been better for Grace. The thought of each one lands in her stomach like a stone. She reaches for the French press. The water and grounds are opaque, nearly black; she presses the strainer down, pours coffee into two waiting mugs. “But—but things will be okay now, right?”

Grace nods. She breathes in, gets her face under control. 

“I mean, it’s happening. You even went to Santa Fe without telling us.” By ‘us,’ she means a Hanson. Any Hanson. “That’s kind of a bold move.”

“I texted when we were on the way.”

“But not before you left town.”

“Brianna, Frankie and I were on the phone off and on all night. It was past two in the morning when she decided to come home, and she didn’t even wait until a decent hour to request a ride from Bud.” Grace frowns. “And you didn’t consult me before you went to Baltimore. You didn’t need to!”

“I still let you know when I was going.” Brianna doesn’t know why, out of all the available conversational trails, this is the one they’ve taken. She gets it. Her mom loves Frankie. She had to find her and bring her home, even if that meant two days in a car with Bud Bergstein. 

“I love her,” Grace says, her words a strange echo of Brianna’s thoughts. “Are you even happy for me at all? Embarrassed for me? Upset?”

“I know you love her.” Why does Brianna feel like crying? “I’m-I’m happy for you. Frankie’s so great.”

Grace smiles. “She is.”

“She’s a lot of fun. And she’s been reminding me that I have feelings since I was about ten years old, which is helpful. I guess.” 

The sound her mom emits isn’t a laugh, exactly. There’s relief in it, and mirth, and ruefulness. “More like since you were a baby,” she says. “I know how it feels.”

“Like you’d do anything for her.” 

“Pretty much.”

“Hey,” Brianna says, and though her stomach tenses up she has to finish verbalizing the thought. “That feeling have anything to do with why you’re not drinking?”

“It’s just for today. Well, for some days.” Grace’s expression shows that she can see Brianna’s not-good-enough face. “So I don’t hurt Frankie. In so many words.” Her spoon scrapes at the bottom of the glass; she’s really done a number on her parfait. Brianna is half done and won’t be able to eat another bite.

“Gotcha,” Brianna says, trying for casual. “Well, if you ever wanna keep me posted on how any of that’s going, I’m here.”

“Thanks. Will do.” Grace sounds very much like she won’t.

As uncomfortable as the moment is, things get a little better from there. Grace tells a long, boring story about how she ate tofu enchilada bake at the co-op on Thursday, then bought tofu for Coyote because she and Frankie were getting coffee beans and wine and Coyote tried to get into a separate checkout line with nothing but a package of tofu, and then Frankie made a curry with tofu for dinner on Friday and it was surprisingly delicious, and although it’s a bad idea to consume too much soy, some weeks just end up that way, especially if you live with a vegetarian. Brianna nods along, happy that breakfast is almost over, happy they’re done talking about emotions. Then it hits her: this—her mom, chatty about tofu—is something she’s never witnessed before, at least not consciously. This is her mom in love. In Baltimore, Barry took Brianna to a real brick and mortar video rental store, and they spent a long time selecting a movie together. They bought candy at the register. Took the movie home and watched it. It didn’t make for a good story, but she’d wanted to tell everyone anyway.

\--

“Got any big plans this evening?” Brianna asks as she walks her mom to the door. When Grace looks stricken, she adds a weak joke. “You know, a _Carol_ movie night or something.”

Grace harrumphs. “Very funny. Actually, you’ll appreciate this: Frankie and I went to see it when it was still in theaters. And when we were buying the tickets, the teenage boy at the counter looked at me and said it was ‘my kind of movie.’ Frankie told me he said it because I’m as glamorous as Cate Blanchett.” 

Brianna cackles. “Oh my God. Did you like the movie?”

“Of course I did,” Grace says, rolling her eyes. She slings her purse strap over her shoulder. “Thanks for breakfast, sweetie.” She reaches out and Brianna goes into her arms. “Come over for dinner next week?” she says during the hug. “You and Mal?” 

When her mom is gone, Brianna goes back to the kitchen and rinses the parfait glasses in the sink. Suddenly her vision blurs, and even though she’s alone she tips her chin upward, glances up at the crown molding for something she might focus on, asks her mouth to stop quivering. But when she looks back down, she’s still crying. One of the glasses is full and spilling over, and the sink is a mess of uneaten yogurt and bits of fruit. _If I hadn’t been so dead._ Brianna doesn’t believe in anything. But somehow, here’s an afterlife. A life her mom could have very easily and very painfully gone without. Might have starved for, and never known why she was so hungry. 

Brianna shuts off the faucet, rinses and dries her hands, and heads off in search of her phone. She’d like to text Frankie something heartfelt and funny and thankful, just as soon as she figures out what she wants to say.


	10. Chapter 10 (Grace)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Don’t get too excited. This is reality, and it’s only a Fresca Bowl.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 4's about to drop and everybody's freaking out! With less than a day to spare, here's the final chapter. Thank you so much to everyone who's read this story. I can't thank you enough.
> 
> (One more thing--if you haven't read "Millimeters," the story that precedes this one, you might want to read that first. It's certainly not a requirement, but the final scene of this chapter will make more sense in the context of that story.)

“I want her green life. Her inside me  
in a green hour I can’t stop.”  


— from “From the Desire Field” by Natalie Diaz

It’s just past noon on Saturday when Grace comes home, holding a bag of takeout from Del Taco behind her back. The house is quiet, but she’s certain Frankie’s somewhere nearby, and before long she finds her asleep, wrapped in two blankets on the couch in the living room. She dangles the Del Taco bag about a foot above Frankie’s head and counts the seconds it takes her to wake up.

Four seconds. Which comes first? Her eyes popping open, or the delighted gasp? “Grace! Is this a dream?”

Grace chuckles. “Don’t get too excited. This is reality, and it’s only a Fresca Bowl.”

“Still. What a way to wake up.” Frankie never seems embarrassed when Grace finds her napping, and just the sight of it makes Grace feel a little sleepy. Frankie yawns and pulls herself into a seated position, making room for Grace to sit next to her. “I’d been preparing a blanket nest to hug you in while you debrief about Brianna. It was obviously as relaxing as I intended it to be.”

“Oh,” Grace says. Talking and hugging. It’s not _not_ what she wants, though it sounds a little overwhelming. Before she sits down, Grace sets the bag on the coffee table and goes to the kitchen to fill up glasses of water. When she comes back, Frankie has unpacked everything.

“One for you and one for me,” Frankie remarks. “Brunch was that amazing, huh?”

Grace sits, half on one of Frankie’s blankets. “We made ‘parfaits’ out of old fruit salad and old yogurt. It was...weird. I think she was too mad at me to make something for real.” The parfait had mass and volume, but it was like eating nothing, and she’s still hungry. It’s not a hunger she can congratulate herself for, nor is it a hunger she can ignore and deal with later; it’s a hunger that says she needs to eat something right now. 

Frankie places a hand on Grace’s back. Even through a sweater and a camisole, she can feel the heat of her nap-warmed skin. Because Frankie isn’t saying anything, is still listening, Grace realizes she can say more. “There was every kind of alcohol, though.” She can hear the hurt in her own voice, the way she’s balanced the not-quite-irony of the sentence on a tightrope.

“Oh, honey.”

“The drinks were clearly where she expended effort.” She wants to add _I didn’t have anything_ , wants to offer hasty reassurances that she can be trusted. But when she looks at Frankie, she sees that Frankie already knows. There’s sympathy in her expression, concern for Grace, but no trace of a more personal concern. No hint of distrust.

“Did you two actually talk?” Frankie asks.

“Yeah,” Grace says. “I think so. I think we’ll be okay.” 

“Good.” 

Frankie squeezes her, then lets go so she can open her Fresca Bowl and squirt half a packet of Del Inferno on top. She offers the rest of the packet to Grace, and they eat for a while. They don’t eat on the couch very often, but it feels right today, eating this soft meal in a soft place. Grace is still jittery from her conversation with Brianna, jittery in a way she wasn’t after her interactions with any of the other kids this week, but somehow, the cushions and blankets can absorb the tension. And there’s the relief of salt, refreshingly substantial after the empty sweetness and tartness of brunch. 

When Grace has finished most of the meal, she sets the bowl on the table. Frankie does too, then reaches for Grace, and before she knows it she’s lying down with her head in Frankie’s lap, facing out toward the room, one of the blankets a loose weight around her legs. Frankie’s fingers land on Grace’s chest, and she pulls gently at her sweater until she can touch Grace’s collarbone. “This okay?” she murmurs. 

Grace nods.

“I like this sweater. How have I never seen you wear this color?” 

“Thanks,” Grace says. “I—” _I bought it last week_ , she means to say, but she’s totally unequipped to finish a sentence, already lost to the sensation of Frankie’s fingers on her skin. She closes her eyes: when she takes sight away from herself, feeling is sharper. She bends her left arm, which is folded underneath her, and thumbs idly at the legging-covered crease between the back of Frankie’s knee and the start of her calf. She goes under her sweater and camisole with her other hand, presses against her own abdomen, because with even this much contact, there are little pulses of arousal there and she needs to acknowledge it, connect to it. Frankie tangles her other hand in Grace’s hair, takes a handful of it and pulls gently but firmly against the grain of her natural part, sending tingles from scalp to spine. “Everywhere,” Grace murmurs, meaning _I feel this everywhere_ , meaning _You can touch me everywhere_. She’s writing Frankie an invitation to her body, and she can say more if she needs to, can help Frankie understand, but this single word is true in all senses.

After a while, Grace unhooks her arm from Frankie’s leg, turns so she’s lying on her back with her head still in Frankie’s lap. She opens her eyes and looks up: Frankie’s hair is a sunlit frame, her expression imbued with a seriousness that’s settled into her cheekbones, her eye sockets, her glimmering eyes, her mouth. Grace reaches until her palm lands against Frankie’s breast. Frankie inhales sharply, trembles at her core, and Grace moves her palm in a gentle circle, replaces palm with fingertips, repeats the motion. What if there was no fabric here? What if Frankie leaned forward until her breast landed in Grace’s mouth? Tonight, she thinks, and the word echoes like a drumbeat. Tonight, or tomorrow, early in the barely-started day, something good to do in the hot grey nothingness that disoriented Frankie on her first morning back. If she starts, she won’t be able to stop, and the guiltless greed of this thought throbs between her legs. 

She won’t be able to hold her arm up forever, but for now she keeps circling. “Frankie,” she says, not having planned anything to say. There’s a broken edge in her voice; it makes something new out of the two syllables she’s uttered countless times.

“Yes, baby?” 

With that, another surge of feeling between her legs. She’s pretty sure she’s getting wet, and the hand on her stomach is right there, so close. “Can I”—she starts to slide her hand down—“put my hand here?”

“Grace, _yes_. Of course you can.” 

She presses the tips of two fingers against a denim seam, and the tension lapping through her body concentrates there. This is dangerous. This isn’t what she meant to do; she meant only to fuse, to warm, a hand on Frankie, a hand on herself. She flattens her hand, lightens her touch until her fingers are only resting between her thighs. When Frankie was gone, she used to do this sometimes while she read a book, always under a blanket until she stopped bothering with coverage. Her purpose wasn’t always—or even usually—to arouse or respond to arousal. Not in those moments. It made her feel a little crazy, being so alone in the house that she could turn something inappropriate into a gesture that was commonplace and without repercussion, but the more she got used to it, the more it seemed that she touched herself as a way of being her own friend, as a way of saying “I’m here,” a way of being not-alone because she had her body.

She stills the fingers still circling Frankie’s breast. Squeezes experimentally, smiles at the way this makes Frankie arch into her touch. “We’ve been together all week,” Grace says. “I haven’t been, um—” 

“Touching yourself,” Frankie says. “Me either.” She leaves Grace’s collarbone, trails her hand between her breasts, past her ribcage, past her abdomen, the inches of skin there still exposed to the air. She joins Grace, runs her fingers over Grace’s fingers, takes in the texture of her skin, traces the veins on the back of her hand. “Grace,” Frankie breathes, “do this whenever you want. Alone, in front of me, doesn’t matter. You don’t need my permission.”

Grace presses her face into Frankie’s belly. She brushes her mouth against the soft fabric of her purple tunic, breathes in the mingled scents of laundry detergent, lavender, and sage.

“You know that, right? You don’t need my permission?”

“I know,” Grace says. The words hum against Frankie. She does know. She still wants it. She imagines reading a book next to Frankie, right here on this couch, distracted from the story and needing something else, craving pressure, asking—what would she say? _Can I?_ or _Please?_ or _I need to, is it okay if I...?_ —and Frankie and her yes would be there. Then a hand would be there too, her own or Frankie’s or both, both, like she has now. Friendship for a body part too often ignored or ravaged, hidden or exposed. She can’t help it: she moans, muffled by fabric and flesh, and the quiet sound makes Frankie press Grace’s hand more solidly against herself. 

Grace curves her body around Frankie, trapping their hands. It’s an automatic response, to chase the source of pleasure, like a houseplant bends toward the sun as it grows. “Oh,” she cries. “Oh no.” Her thoughts aren’t hers; they come from a bigger place: _I can’t make it I need it I need you_. She’s never wanted sex as badly as she does in this moment, has never experienced such clarity of desire, a sharp ache of longing in every place she wants to be touched.

“What do you want to do?” Frankie whispers. She pulls Grace closer, letting go of her hair and cradling the bend of her back. “Anything,” she says. “Anything.” 

“I want”—Grace pulls back and heaves a sigh—“I want to wait until tonight.” Saying it is like spilling cold water onto the conversation, but it’s true. The sentence cuts through the part of her that wants to unzip her jeans and ask Frankie to get her off right now, the part of her that wants to go down on Frankie here in the living room and the light of day, damn the windows. She wants to wait just a little longer. She wants a full day of being sober. She wants the bed that’s become their bed. She wants to stick to the plan.

“Okay,” Frankie says. “Okay, I can handle that.” She’s breathing hard. She slips her hand out from between Grace’s legs, reaches for the blanket pooled at her feet. 

“Thanks, Frankie, sorry—”

“—don’t apologize.” She tugs at the blanket. “Can I lie down with you?”

Grace makes room for Frankie to stretch out behind her. With Frankie’s arms wrapped around her, she doesn’t feel like she’s about to fall off the couch, or like she might shake apart with unspent lust. She feels calmer already, warm beneath the blanket, and she shimmies backward, pressing Frankie against the back of the couch. As they get settled, they sigh in unison, which makes them laugh. Just then, Frankie’s phone—which is perched on the arm of the couch nearest their heads—beeps, rings, and chimes in short succession. 

“What the hell?” Grace says.

Frankie reaches for the phone, silences it, and checks the screen. “Library hold notification. _Little Fires Everywhere_ is ready for pick-up! I only requested it Monday—they must have a lot of copies.”

“Why the fanfare?” she asks, though she wants to read the latest Ng too. 

“Well, I always opt for email, voice, and text. Like an emergency, but good.” Frankie awkwardly holds her phone up over their heads. “Hey, I missed a bunch of texts from Brianna. They must have come in while I was sleeping.” Of course Frankie could sleep through text notifications but not the smell of Del Taco. Frankie pulls the phone closer to her face and squints. “Did you two try to get a hold of me an hour ago?”

“No,” Grace says. “An hour ago, I’d already left her place.” Will Frankie let her read the messages? Are the texts about her? 

“Oh,” Frankie says, a hush in her voice. “Look.” She angles the phone so Grace can see, scrolls through message after message comprised solely of pink emoji hearts. “Her blessing.” 

“Her thanks.” They’re in close quarters, but even without being able to focus, Grace sees tears in Frankie’s eyes. “Thank you for being so good to her,” Grace says. “You’ve been—you’ve been like a second mother to her.” 

“Honey, of course. There’s no one like Brianna.”

“She really needed you.” What if she hadn’t resented this fact, resisted this fact for so many years? What if she’d seen what Brianna saw in Frankie, but from her own perspective? Could they have started sooner? Could they have been the ones sneaking away to this beach house? She couldn’t have hidden for two decades like Robert and Sol did—Grace knows this much about herself. She’s pretty sure Frankie couldn’t have, either. 

She thinks suddenly of Brianna in her lavender prom dress, impatiently posing for photos in the front yard. Robert had been worried sick about her date, a nineteen-year-old who’d graduated the year before and hung around town, a slouchy, sullen character who wasn’t worried about impressing parents. He’d looked like an even less attractive James Franco. Grace wasn’t thrilled about Patrick, but she didn’t share Robert’s anxieties: Brianna was on birth control, and as upsetting as that revelation had initially been, and for all her troubles with Brianna—the rabid secrecy, the lashing out—she trusted her daughter’s judgment in this arena. Robert’s doting, hand-wringing concern had felt tiresome and dated even then. 

It occurs to her now that she doesn’t have to bother with Robert’s part in the story. She moves the memory to the beach house, replaces Robert with Frankie, lets herself imagine Frankie embarrassing Brianna, the oldest of the four kids. She’d have tried and failed to help Brianna with Patrick’s boutonniere, might have drawn a little blood before Grace stepped in and pinned the damn thing herself. She’d have taken too many photos with that clunky digital point-and-shoot the Bergsteins were so proud of. 

And there would be Mallory lingering in the wings, just like real life, taking mental notes for her own prom two years down the road. Already the family secretary, just trying to be helpful, trying to bounce back from her hurt feelings: Mal had spent two hours on Brianna’s updo, and at the last minute, Brianna tore it out and wore her hair down, fearful of appearing to try too hard. 

Grace remembers that Coyote and Bud would be there in this revision of history, but they’d have stayed inside the house for this scene, very determinedly not caring about the festivities, and when everyone else was back inside after Brianna and Patrick drove away, they’d have clamored to be allowed to order in for dinner. 

And how would the delivery man know he was at the right house? Because of the mailbox, clearly labeled not only with the house number but with BERGSTEIN and HANSON, their names borrowed from two men they’d stopped needing. Or maybe, consciousnesses raised, they would have returned those names. But would she and Frankie have wanted to take back quiet, painful names from quiet, painful fathers? Would they have invented something else to call themselves— 

Frankie, who’s been scrolling through the hearts and smiling, sets the phone down on top of her blanket-covered hip. She presses a kiss to Grace’s temple. “She needed you, too. Needs you.”

“It’ll be better now,” Grace says. “Brianna said so herself.” But Brianna had said _okay_ , not _better_ , the lack of comparison a kindness Grace notices only now. She feels a pull at the corners of her eyes, a weighed-down feeling in her joints. A sleepy heaviness she could float away on. She can rest here for a while, here with Frankie. Do something easy. 

\--

When they’re too cramped and hot and awake to keep napping, it’s only two in the afternoon. “Tonight” is a concept as vague as a cloud, as far away as another planet. 

“We’ve had days off before,” Frankie says, standing in the middle of the room as if lost. “But what do people even do on a day off? What are my hobbies? Do I enjoy anything? Do I have any interests?”

They’ve been awake for a few minutes. The blankets are folded and returned to the back of the couch. The wrinkles are smoothed out of their clothes. There are so many hours left in the day. 

Grace laughs, and there’s a false note in the sound. “I don’t know, do you? How did we fill seventy-three years of hours?”

“I know!” Frankie sounds a little frantic, a little hysterical. “I’ll be in my studio,” she says. “Painting. Come say hi if you want.” Her eyes focus on a wall behind Grace. 

She leaves abruptly, but it’s fine. Grace enjoys things. Grace has interests. She can keep busy. She changes the sheets, selecting fresh white ones that are soft and smooth after countless times in the wash. She takes good care of linens, though, and their hue is still bright. She starts a load of towels. 

She remembers seeing a crossword in the back of a magazine somewhere in the house. She finds the magazine, finds the crossword, sits still long enough to fill in three words before she misspells “Vidal” and chucks the whole thing in the recycling bin. She goes to Frankie’s studio, where Frankie is indeed applying paint to canvas, but stays only long enough to ask Frankie to explain where she keeps her library card. (There’s a drawer in her desk divided into two compartments: on the left, an extensive collection of novelty erasers from Japan; on the right, membership cards.) 

Then Grace sets off to retrieve _Little Fires Everywhere_ from the San Diego Central Library. When Frankie places a book on hold, she always has it sent there; it’s her favorite location, if less conveniently located than the La Jolla Riford branch. On the drive there, Grace silently practices what she’ll say if questioned by a librarian for checking out a book under a false identity: “This is my partner’s card. If there’s a problem, you can call her.” But when she arrives, she remembers self-checkout, and nobody talks to her at all. She lingers a few extra minutes after she checks out the book, taking pleasure in being in one of Frankie’s favorite buildings. 

There’s an excellent amount of time-wasting traffic on the way home. Despite being on autopilot, she manages to switch away from KPBS at the precise moment of the final measure of the "Weekend All Things Considered" closing theme, just in time to avoid "Prairie Home Companion." In her haste, she chooses a random station, so she still has to fiddle with the dial, but her victory is in not having to listen to that awful man speak-sing about biscuit mix and women and sad lakes for even one second.

At home, there’s a light on in Frankie’s studio, but Grace heads straight to the kitchen. She’ll heat up the leftover curry, she decides, and while it warms she’ll find Frankie and bring her back to the house. 

\--

Although they rarely go to bed earlier than ten, by nine the house is dim and hushed. Grace turns off the downstairs lights and walks upstairs, so nervous she can hardly see what’s in front of her. The bathroom door is ajar, and as Grace passes it on the way to the bedroom, she makes eye contact with Frankie’s reflection. “Be there in a sec,” Frankie says, grinning around a mouthful of toothpaste. Grace has been ready for bed for a while, though she’s still wearing her clothes from the day, having spent the after-dinner hours trying and failing to read or watch or listen or think before giving up and taking an extra shower and throwing her clothes back on. 

When she gets to the bedroom, she feels briefly at a loss: she’s slept in the same bed as Frankie before, of course, and other than the fact that they haven’t changed into pajamas tonight, on the surface there’s nothing different about this moment, nothing left to do to prepare herself. This isn’t a stair step to something she hopes will feel different this time. This isn’t a new act in an old play. It’s just her life. It’s just her life. Still standing, she takes her pills with a gulp of water. She turns on her bedside lamp, walks around the bed to turn on Frankie’s, and is flipping the switch to turn off the overhead light when Frankie arrives. 

“I’m nervous as fuck,” Frankie blurts. 

Grace laughs. “Yep,” she says. “Me too. So let’s do it. Then we won’t be nervous anymore.” Suddenly she’s quick-voiced and quick-limbed, buzzing with light. She peels off her sweater and camisole in one go, unzips her jeans and steps out of them, yanks the comforter and topsheet halfway down the bed, and sits down in her black lace bra and underwear with her back against the headboard and pillows. Frankie stands frozen at the side of the bed, mouth agape, and it occurs to Grace too late that perhaps Frankie looks this way because Grace is moving too fast. Maybe Frankie would have liked to undress her. “Come here?” Grace asks, and she has to swallow hard before she can get the next word out. “Please?”

Frankie walks closer, and Grace takes the hem of her tunic between her thumbs and index fingers, lifts it so it’s bunched around her waist. Their eyes meet. She takes a deep breath. _Slow down._ “I love you, Frankie,” Grace says, her voice barely louder than her thoughts. It’s so different, being the one in the conversation who says it first. Her stomach swoops, but she doesn’t look away. 

“Oh,” Frankie breathes. “I love you, too.” 

“Sit in front of me?” Grace requests. When Frankie complies, sitting between her legs with her back to Grace, she brings her hands back to Frankie’s sides and lifts the tunic over her head. Above the waist, there are three layers to go: a gauzy long-sleeved shirt, a camisole, a bra. “Can I keep going?” Frankie shivers and nods, and Grace places a kiss against her still-clothed shoulder before she continues, lifting and removing the shirt, then the camisole, then unclasping the bra and sliding the straps down her arms, dropping each item on the floor at the side of the bed. “More?” Grace whispers, and Frankie braces herself, arms straightened against the bed, so she can lift her hips. Grace hooks her fingers around the waistband of Frankie’s leggings and accidentally hooks into her underwear too. She pushes until the leggings and underwear are halfway down Frankie’s thighs, then Frankie relaxes her arms and sits back down, yanking the clothes the rest of the way off herself. She collapses into Grace, and Grace sighs as she looks, finally, at Frankie’s whole body, at her beautiful body that she’s barely seen but loves with such specificity. 

She turns her hand into a palette knife, scrapes the smooth invisible air across Frankie’s back with the side of her hand. Frankie’s been quiet this whole time, hasn’t said a word. Grace speaks again, a tremble in her voice. “For so long, I didn’t know I wanted this. And it feels like I spent almost as much time waiting for it. After I did know. And I started to think it would never happen.”

“I’m sorry—” 

“No, no. All I mean is I need to spend a long time on this part.” She leans over and fetches from her nightstand drawer the fresh jar of yam lube she’d placed there earlier today. 

“How’s the supply holding up?” Frankie asks.

“Just fine,” Grace says, a little incredulous. She places the jar next to her on the bed. Before Frankie moved to Santa Fe, she’d used proper canning techniques to preserve large quantities of lube so it would last longer without needing to be refrigerated. It had been both touching and depressing to receive forty-eight shelf stable jars of lube as a parting gift. There are dozens of jars left. Grace supposes Frankie will eventually need to find a new yam supplier, but there’s no danger of running out anytime soon. 

Despite nervousness, she’s so clear-headed that the feeling is a presence in the room. She’d been certain that in this moment she’d feel sobriety as an absence, and she does. She’ll want a drink tomorrow, with a desire approaching need at that point. But the feeling isn’t only absence or loss; she hadn’t counted on this other type of desire when she anticipated being sober for this, hadn’t ever had that with her in the room during sex. For now, the sharp clear presence is interesting, even good. And it’s what Frankie wants. And there’s no agenda. There’s nothing she has to do first, second, third. No contortions, no acrobatics. She doesn’t have to go somewhere else to get through this. All she needs to do is stay right here. 

She wants to wrap her arms around Frankie’s waist and pull her closer, and so she does. She slides one hand up, takes turn playing with the soft, heavy breasts she’ll love forever, slides one hand down until it lands on Frankie’s inner thigh. “You okay?” she whispers, and Frankie nods, leaning her head back to rest against the dip between Grace’s neck and shoulder. “I’ll use—um, I’ll use plenty of lube, but can I feel you first?”

“Yeah,” Frankie says. “I really like this position, by the way. I didn’t expect—” 

“What? Didn’t expect what?” It might not be sexy to ask the question, but Grace can’t help it.

Frankie exhales, and the breath takes the shape of laughter. “This position.” She pauses. “You touching me first.” 

Because of this afternoon on the couch, Grace wonders, or because of something bigger, some pattern? “Well,” she says. “Here we are.” She forces the hand gripping Frankie’s thigh to relax, edges closer to her center until her fingers brush against the sparse thatch of hair covering her mons. She parts the hair, eases down Frankie’s lips, runs her fingertips along the wet crease of her entrance. It’s not like touching herself, exactly, but the angle’s familiar. They’ll need lube, but Grace doesn’t want to leave the wetness Frankie’s body has created. Careful to apply almost no pressure, she rubs against it, stopping only when Frankie starts to shift her hips, seeking out speed and rhythm that Grace will need lube to provide. She hands Frankie the jar to open, scoops out a generous amount and warms it between her fingers. “Okay,” she says to herself, to Frankie, and when she returns her fingers it’s with pressure and purpose. “Tell me—tell me—”

Frankie swallows, and Grace feels the ripple against her own frame. “Like that,” Frankie says. “Just like that, but a little higher when you go up?” 

This makes perfect sense, and there’s as much wonder in the logic of the act as in the pleasure of it. She gives Frankie long, steady strokes, teasing against and around her clit with every upward movement. She spends minutes there, changing nothing about the rhythm she’s found until Frankie’s thighs start to shake. She knows what to do then: move faster, concentrate the pressure into the pads of her fingers, give Frankie tight circles. Her other hand has been resting almost forgotten against Frankie’s breast, but now she uses it, too, taking the nipple between her fingers with a motion she already knows Frankie loves. She’s sweating, and her own body feels hollow with the need to make Frankie come. When she does, Frankie is quiet, emitting a frantic series of gasps that build to a soft cry, and that’s one answer to a question Grace wants to ask a thousand different ways. 

“Honey,” Grace says. “Sweetheart.” She slows her touch until the magnetic pull keeping her there seems to fade. She responds to the fading reluctantly, taking her hand away but finding a home for it immediately, pressing her wet fingers against the soft curve of Frankie’s belly. She brushes Frankie’s hair to the side, bends to kiss her neck.

Frankie turns in her grip, leans in and kisses her on the lips. “My God,” she says when she pulls away. “That was so good, that was, um—” Another kiss, and this time she nibbles Grace’s bottom lip. 

Grace is relieved, the sensation as distinct as stepping into a shower—she’s made Frankie come, she’s given her one example of the thing she’s most wanted to give—but as the headiness of relief fades, the sharp presence is back, translucent and a little scary, the awareness of awareness itself.

Frankie runs her hands down Grace’s back, making her shiver, finds the clasp of Grace’s bra and works it successfully open despite shaking fingers. When her fingers calm, she pulls the bra away from Grace’s body and adds it to the pile of their clothes. “Damn,” she says. “I’ll never get tired of this,” and Grace smiles against her fear, no words in her mind.

“Lie down?” Frankie says, scooting out from between Grace’s legs to make room. Grace stretches her legs as she stretches out, feels her hips relax by degrees after having had her legs angled around Frankie’s body for a while. Frankie lies down beside her, reaches across Grace’s middle and presses her hand into the bed, hard enough that it lifts Grace a little, shifts Frankie closer. She does the same thing to the few inches of bed between their bodies. She takes Grace’s hand in hers, pulls it so Grace smooths the sheet like she’s making half a snow angel. In a flash, she realizes: Frankie’s reminding her that the mattress is there, reminding her there’s a foundation beneath them, that it’s something she can feel and trust. “Are you okay?” Frankie asks. 

Grace nods, and Frankie lets go of her hand. She touches the waistband of Grace’s lacy underwear, then seems to think better of it, stutters her thumb against the expanse of fabric. When the touch lands, tendrils of heat curl from it, travel into Grace’s belly. There’s a damp spot on her underwear, and Frankie gasps when she finds it. “Sweetheart,” she says. “I should never have made you wait.” Wait for hours, she might mean, or wait for months. 

They tug on Grace’s underwear together, then, and finally it’s gone, and Frankie coats her fingers in lube, strokes Grace’s labia with gentle, exploratory touches, parts her and strokes with intention. She kisses Grace’s ribs, kisses her belly, and Grace knows now what “devour” means. 

She’s had sex with other people—with men—that felt like a compliment. So much effort on the part of the recipient: to be gracious, to provide a place for the compliment to go. She could concentrate in a particular way and reach a mild, merciful moment when her brain and body cooperated with the friction and heat. This is so much more, so much stronger already, even the softest touch radiating through her, a series of gentle explosions. She doesn’t have to try to react one way or another; she’s nothing but reaction, all uncontrolled inevitability.

But there’s still a voice telling her she’s unknowable, that she’s been wired with an uninterpretable code. For all the dismantling this week has done, for so long she’s been locked to anyone but herself. Alone, her orgasms are bold and inevitable, almost excruciatingly good. She’s made herself come as a way of being nicer to her body, a way to relieve pent-up excesses, to soothe a hangover, to keep from having another drink, to fall asleep, to wake up. Can she have that in the context of Frankie, in the context of herself with Frankie? She believes she can, but does she know it?

“Grace,” Frankie says, and the sound brings her back into herself, back into the way Frankie is opening her. Frankie’s touches are gentle but quick. She moves with the confidence of her vocation, with a kindness that doesn’t surprise Grace intellectually but does surprise her body. She sinks deeper against Grace, not inside her but everywhere, traveling in circles. 

With each circle, pleasure rises and condenses, at once from within herself and without. “I don’t want it to be over,” Grace gasps, embarrassed the moment the words are out because she hasn’t even come yet—she just knows she’s going to, and can’t handle thinking about the moment after. 

“Baby, it’s not over,” Frankie says. “It’s not gonna be over.” 

Grace’s cheeks flame. The orgasm flickers in the distance, then nearer. “Please,” she says, but she doesn’t want anything to change. She wants Frankie inside of her, but not until she’s come, not until she’s ready for more.

“Yeah,” Frankie says, and she speeds up just enough, provides her with the edge, and room to fall over it. Grace hears her own voice, the awed cry of it louder than she could have ever planned to be. “Yeah,” Frankie says again. “That’s it, sweetheart, that’s it.”

At some point, Grace has closed her eyes, and as the cords of pleasure loosen their grip, she opens them long enough to find Frankie’s gaze. “Can you—” she breathes. “Inside, can you—” 

Frankie nods. “Just give me one sec,” she says. “One sec.” She flexes her fingers against Grace, uses the hand that’s been pressed between them to find the lube and apply more. She eases inside with two fingers, moves in and out slowly and sweetly, the leverage creating little aftershocks. They kiss as Frankie fucks her, moaning into each others’ mouths, and when she comes a second time it’s fiercer, the wedge of a harmless knife creating and then breaking tension.

Later, after Frankie turns out her own light, she leans across Grace to turn off hers. Grace grins. There are a couple ways the night might go from here. She might float sex-limp into sleep, the hard sleep of the well-fucked. Or she might be too happy to sleep, will instead lie here and replay the entire night over and over. She doesn’t care which.

Then her stomach growls. Loudly. She might be able to convince herself that Frankie couldn’t hear it, that it was louder for Grace because she—like all humans—is confusingly both inside her body and outside her body. But Frankie immediately shifts, scooting closer. She puts a hand on her belly. “You’re hungry,” she says, and Grace tenses in preparation for the _Who’s surprised? You barely touched your dinner_ , but it doesn’t come. “Honey, let me bring you something.” 

“I’m okay,” Grace says. “It can wait for morning.”

“Well, yeah. But what do you want?”

It’s a simple equation: Grace lies here, Frankie leaves the bed, but just for a minute, Frankie brings her food, Grace eats the food, Grace is no longer hungry. “Cereal,” Grace hears herself say. It’s not a usual selection for her, but Frankie gets high and eats cereal at night all the time, acts like it’s the most exquisite food in the entire world. “Please.” 

Frankie’s out of bed like a shot, even though the sleepy little sighs she was making just a moment ago were the reason she turned out the lights. “I’ll be right back,” she says.

Grace’s stomach growls again when Frankie marches back into the bedroom with the cereal bowl. “Aww,” Frankie says, then she cocks her head to the side, a gesture Grace can see because her eyes have adjusted to the dark, and because it’s familiar enough that she doesn’t have to rely only on her eyes. “Is this what being in love is?” Frankie asks. “You go from being a normal person—”

“You were never normal, Frankie.”

“—to a person whose heart melts at the adorable sound of a growling stomach?”

Grace shrugs, reaches for the bowl of...Grape Nuts, it looks like. “I don’t know,” she says lightly. “You’re the one with lots of practice being in love.” 

“Not like this, though. Your stomach growled, and my brain was immediately like, ‘Do we get take-out or order in or go to the grocery store? And what’s the closest store open 24 hours?’ Then I remembered we have food in the house. And if you said you wanted madeleines or strudel or Pad Thai or, I don’t know, anything, I’d be downstairs learning how to make it.” 

Grace points at the cereal with her spoon. “This is perfect, thanks.”

Frankie outstretches her arms as she settles in next to Grace, moves expansively to reference the entire bed. “This was perfect,” she says. “I’d been so nervous I almost forgot how well we know each other.”

Grace swallows a bite, considers what she has to say. It’ll never be easier than now, she reminds herself, here in the glowing dark. “Thank you,” she says, “for asking for what you needed. Before.”

“For sober sex, you mean?”

“Yeah.” 

“Was that part of it okay?”

“It was,” Grace says, and just as she knew Frankie believed she didn’t drink any alcohol at Brianna’s, she knows Frankie believes this, too. “Not easy, but okay.”

“I knew it wouldn’t be easy.” Frankie touches Grace’s thigh, which reminds Grace they’re both still naked.

“You already know I’ve been tapering since we talked on Tuesday night,” Grace says. “So I could go the whole day without it today. And I think I want—” She pauses, and for a second her throat feels too thick to go on. 

Frankie squeezes her thigh. “You can explain it.”

“I think I want to keep trying that. Drinking less, with sober days mixed in.” She glances at Frankie, doesn’t miss the flash of interest in her eyes. Is she thinking about sex? All those sober days stretching ahead of them, ready to be filled with experiences. Grace sighs. “But I don’t think I can taper to nothing. Or maybe—maybe I don’t want to.”

For an awful second, Frankie’s quiet. “Sounds like you’re going for the tapered jeans approach,” she finally says, her knowing tone at odds with the unfamiliar phrase. 

“I’m sorry, what?” She’s certain Frankie has made up the term. All the more reason to find out what it means.

“Well, you know those jeans from the nineties. The stonewashed ones that looked like triangles for your legs? Actually, neither of us wore them, I don’t think, probably for different reasons—anyway, the pant leg tapered in quite a bit, but if those narrowing lines had run all the way into each other, there’d be no place for the foot to go. And it sounds to me like what you want is a drinking hemline. Some stopping point that isn’t all the way to stopped.”

Grace smiles. She’d never have worn those jeans, but Frankie’s articulated exactly what she wants. “I guess I do. I mean, I’d love be able to have a martini and feel fine about it. To know ‘it’s okay, you can have another one in a couple days.’ And to hardly think about it in the time in between.” 

“Or to just be happy with the one you have.”

“God, you’re right.” 

“What happens if that doesn’t work out? If you’re just too hungry for it?”

She’s always thought of drinking as a response to a thirst, but Frankie’s right. It’s hunger, it’s an appetite. “I guess...I guess I go back to the drawing board. I quit altogether, preferably with help. Or I—I disappoint us.”

“Oh, Grace.” Frankie wraps an arm around her, scoots backward a bit so she can encourage Grace to lean back against her and rest. Grace abandons her cereal bowl to the nightstand and takes her up on the offer. “I can speak only for myself, but you wouldn’t disappoint me. Okay? You’re too good.” 

Good. Grace can say “thank you” in response to _pretty_ or _smart_ , can accept praise for a great idea. But she’s going to spend days turning _good_ around in her mind, taking little bites of it, setting it down and picking it up again, trying out what it would mean to believe it was true. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth,” she says. “I’ll be right back.”

\--

In the shapeless middle of the night, the bed dips. Frankie must have gotten up to go to the bathroom or get some water without Grace noticing, and now she’s here again. Grace reaches out, awake enough to remember what she’d wanted in her mouth yesterday. When Frankie’s close enough, she bends and kisses the top of one of her breasts. “Can I?” she asks against the skin, trailing her lips lower.

Frankie laughs, a delighted “who me?” chuckle that’s starting to become familiar, and cups the back of Grace’s head, pulling her closer. 

Grace sucks and sucks, taking turns with Frankie’s breasts. She can’t stop so she doesn’t, the pleasure soft and wet and edgeless. She makes Frankie shake with it, and then she has an idea: she holds Frankie’s hand, brings it between Frankie’s legs. They touch her together, their fingers a gentle counterpoint to Grace’s mouth. “Okay,” Frankie says when she can’t take any more. “Okay.” Grace pulls away then, but only enough to relieve the pressure, falls back asleep with her face against Frankie’s chest.

\--

In the morning, Frankie points at Grace. “Cocktail,” she says. She points at herself. “Pancakes.” She gives Grace a kiss. “And vice versa.”

“We never did go to Fig Tree,” Grace says. Despite her breakfast negotiations at the Days Inn, they’d gotten up still-exhausted on Monday morning and gone straight to work. 

There’s a long wait even for a spot at the bar, but it’s worth it. “Bar’s better anyway,” Frankie says once they’re settled in their tall chairs and their drink orders are in. “We’ve taken our relationship to the next level. I deserve to sit next to you.” 

Maybe it’s because there’s a Bloody Mary on the way with her name on it, and a mimosa for Frankie. Maybe it’s because they’ve taken their relationship to the next level. Maybe it’s because she’s happy and needs to capture it. She fishes her phone from her bag, turns the camera to selfie mode, and tells Frankie to lean in. 

She’s too shy to take more than one picture, but one is enough. She stares at the photo for a long time. “Hey,” she says. “I want to send this to Robert. Which means Sol is probably going to see it too?”

“Send it,” Frankie says. 

Even after she’s sent the text—no words, just the picture—Grace keeps looking. There’s Frankie tucked into her shoulder, eyes closed, focused entirely on Grace. And there’s Grace. She’s both the photographer and the photographed. Her subject matter is being in love. She’s looking directly into the camera, directly into the world.


End file.
